Michelle Obama is being skewered online and by fashion industry experts for what critics tell RadarOnline.com is her attempt to reinvent herself as a kind of real-world Miranda Priestly, by echoing the imperious philosophy of The Devil Wears Prada as she promotes her new fashion-focused book, The Look.
The 61-year-old former first lady’s latest project, written with her longtime stylist Meredith Koop, revisits the outfits that shaped her eight years in the White House and beyond.
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The ‘Soft Power’ of Fashion
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Critics mocked Obama for echoing Miranda Priestly’s imperious tone, a character from ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’
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“What I wore was important … people looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say,” she writes in the book. “This is the soft power of fashion.”
She added about the fashion industry in a recent interview to promote the book: “It is a business – billions of dollars of business.”
Her phrase echoes almost word-for-word the famous Devil Wears Prada scene in which Meryl Streep‘s magazine boss character puts down her assistant Andrea, played by Anne Hathaway, by telling her a “belt is not just a belt” – it is part of a huge multi-billion dollar business.
Obama’s messages have now prompted mockery, with some claiming she is trying to copy Priestly’s cold, polished worldview and make herself into some kind of fashion guru.
One veteran fashion publicist said: “People are teasing her because the language is straight out of fictional Miranda’s playbook – the idea that clothes are strategy, that every hemline is a political act. It’s uncanny, and some think she’s embracing the caricature.”
Another industry insider added: “She’s being mocked for leaning into this high-priestess tone, but that’s the cost of trying to step into the guru space. Folks hear echoes of The Devil Wears Prada and assume she’s putting on the persona.”
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A ‘Lighter’ Book Project
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Obama echoes ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ by calling fashion a multi-billion-dollar business.
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Obama, who has spent the years since 2016 writing books, launching her podcast, founding Higher Ground Productions with her husband, and leading youth programs through the Obama Foundation, insists the new project is lighter than her previous memoirs.
“Becoming was like ripping my heart open and showing it to the world,” she says, adding, “There is a lightness to this book project that wasn’t there with my other two.”
Part of her motivation, she says, is to honor Koop, who guided her wardrobe from the early Chicago days through the White House years.
Obama explains Koop’s work required not only taste but political savvy – knowing when a designer had sparked controversy or when a label’s choices might overshadow an event.
“She would then come in with a month (of outfits) and she would explain her thinking to me,” Obama says.
“I knew that if Meredith brought it in, it was safe and thoughtful and strategic, and then all I had to do is go with something I liked.”
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Obama insists her new book feels lighter than her earlier memoirs.
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Style, she argues, was never about theatrics.
“I don’t think the out-out-out-there fashion works for me, because I never want the clothes to speak before I do,” she explains.
She also jokes about avoiding giant bows or attention-seeking belts, and recalls how her commitment to American designers was tied to the values she and her husband held: opening opportunity and sharing visibility.
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The Scrutiny of the First Lady
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Obama said she dresses for herself now and refuses to disappear at 60.
Her approach was also shaped by scrutiny.
“I got dinged for showing my arms,” she says. She also remembers the frenzy after wearing shorts at the Grand Canyon in 2009, saying, “The shorts-off-the-plane incident taught me something. It’s not worth having an important trip… colored by a distraction.” Some pressures and scrutiny were unique to her position as the first black First Lady.
She said: “When I cut bangs into my hair, that became an ‘Oh my God, what does this mean?'”
Now, she says, the politics have eased. She dresses for herself – in denim, braids, raw-edged suits, stiletto boots.
And despite the mockery, she remains unfazed. As she writes in The Look about hitting 60, “Society tends to diminish women when they hit this milestone, (but) I’m not going to disappear.”
