Dazzling in Dublin

Photos by Carolyn Kaster / AP Images

The President and First Lady have begun their European tour in Ireland. First stop: a meet-and-greet with the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, and her husband, Martin McAleese, at the Presidential Residence in Dublin. Second stop: a tour through the official guesthouse, Farmleigh, with Fionnuala O'Kelly, wife of the Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny. 

For this first appearance, Mrs. O wore a black and white print (possible lace overlay?) dress, paired with a jeweled belt at the waist and polished black jacket. Tweed pumps completed the ensemble. 

Update: Above, Mrs. O wears a black and white openwork lace sheath dress by Peter Som. The dress hails from the designer's Fall 2011 collection. The First Lady also wears a custom piece by Paris-based Shourouk. Originally intended to be a tiara, Mrs. O modified the piece to wear it as a belt. Further detail can be found here.

Off They Go

Image by Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Pictures

The President and First Lady left the White House last evening for a whirlwind trip through Europe, which will include stops in four countries over six days. (The itinerary includes stops in Ireland, England, France and Poland.) Mrs. O kicked off her travel in style, donning head to toe red as the First Couple made their way to Marine One. 

P.S. A massive thanks to Posh Tater who did a truly outstanding job with the blog this past week. 

Over and Out

And so my week as caretaker for the Mrs O blog draws to a close. Having done this for a mere nine days, my admiration for Mrs T has gone through the roof. How she writes update after update with a fresh insightful paragraph and has done so since September 22nd 2008 (cataloguing outfits from August 25th 2008), I will never know. But I am SO glad that she does.

While I am incredibly honoured to have been offered the chance to do this (and I have loved every minute), I must admit to being sneakily pleased that I don't have to catalogue the next nine days!

So, Mrs T! I hope you had a great vacation and welcome back. My fellow posters! Thank you to everyone who was encouraging. But the greatest thanks are always due to Mrs O herself, and her inspiration, integrity, commitment, warmth - and of course, style.

On Point

On Friday evening Mrs Obama was at West Point to address cadets at their graduation banquet, becoming the first First Lady ever to do so. Staying true to her mission of supporting military families, she stressed the importance of supporting army personnel who are far from home and family, and to draw strength from their own families.  Her full speech will be available to view from the West Point website at 9am on Saturday. 

With her customary grace and style, the First Lady provided a splash of vibrant colour amid a sea of white uniforms. She wore the scarlet silk, V-neck Jason Wu dress that we first saw on the cover of Glamour back in October 2009 (here).  On arrival this was paired with the ivory L’Wren Scott cardigan, beaded with scarlet flowers and leaves, that we have seen many times before. I'm not sure it's ever looked better. Classic pearls completed the look. 

Photos currently available for this event are not helpful in terms of showing off the outfit (hence my delay in posting).  However, as you can see a full length shot of Mrs Obama here (3^rd photo in slideshow) and as we have some quite good photos in the archives, I have simply chosen the best pictures of Mrs O herself at this event.  

Happy weekend! 

AP Photo/Mike Groll

School Days

While I was expecting an appearance from Mrs O this evening I was not expecting to have photos pop up from a visit by the President, the First Lady and Malia Obama to Sidwell Friends School - a lovely bonus! 

Here we see Mrs Obama in the pink leopard print skirt first seen departing Hawaii in the New Year (see here), this time teamed with what appears to be a purple scoop neck T-shirt and brilliant magenta cardigan.  Perfectly demonstrating Mrs O's genius for mixing bright colours and punchy patterns to great effect. 

Update: The skirt is by Gregory Parkinson - thanks to Charlene-in-Detroit for reminding me.

 

Image by AP Photo/Charles Dharapak