First Ladies of the US

So I visited the National Museum of American History which is one of the Smithsonian museum. It is a small but fun museum filled with modern popular culture kind of stuff.

My favourite section by far was definitely the First Ladies section which showed beautiful gowns, accessories and official tableware of some of the American First Ladies through the last century.

 This was definitely a highlight of the collection on display - Michelle Obama's dress from the inauguration ball. They say this is the defining moment for the President and his significant-other in terms of taking on the Presidency and for the ladies their choice of gown is of course very much scruitinised!

This is Michelle Obama's Jason Wu dress which is just stunning.

 And her shoes - Jimmy Choo!

And then there is the spectacular showing of official china which each First Lady gets to specially choose and design. Nancy Reagan's is beautiful:

And then they have other dresses from inauguration balls, special functions and the like. Most of the famous First Ladies are represented in some way.

This is Lady Bird Johnson's stunning ensemble. The exhibition says she wanted to choose something timeless and this definitely fits the bill. Decades later I can still imagine a Hollywood movie star wearing this on the red carpet!

Mamie Eisenhower's evening gown is in real life quite vividly glamorous in a very traditional way. Beautiful!

And this, of course, personifies Jackie Kennedy's elegant simplistic style.  This was from a State Dinner and is really quite intricate but still has a sense of standing out.

And don't you just love this - Nancy Reagan's petite little skirt suit set. She must be a tiny lady in real life because this was so petite!

Which is your favourite dress from those above? I think mine is Lady Bird Johnson's and of course Michelle Obamas. It just has an ethereal modern, but still timeless appeal.