Since the 18th century messages have been flying across the Atlantic between France and the U.S., with U.S. forefathers including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams undertaking diplomatic missions, doing deals with their Gallic counterparts and seeking support for their revolution in North America.
Women, meanwhile, were keeping a close eye on the style of their transatlantic sisters, and none more so than Dolley Madison. After she became first lady, the wife of James Madison shrugged off her Quaker wardrobe and took to wearing low-cut Empire dresses, in the style of Joséphine Bonaparte, and adding exotic, Continental touches such as turbans adorned with feathers and jewels.
A Francophile like her husband, Dolley Madison learned all about French style from fashion dolls that were regularly shipped across the Atlantic to showcase the latest fashions.
In the 200 years since she was sweeping around the White House hosting her famously lavish parties — and serving food by French chefs — America’s first ladies have had an on-off relationship with French fashion. Elizabeth Monroe and Edith Wilson loved it, while many others shrugged, and trod their own style paths.
It wasn’t until the 31-year-old Jacqueline Kennedy became first lady that the transatlantic romance blossomed again, although the fashion dynamic hasn’t changed much since Madison’s days. The French still set the style agenda and insist on showcasing their nation’s talents on the world stage, while American first ladies sometimes find themselves walking a line between their love of French fashion, and their duty to promote homegrown talent.
Dressing for the New Age of Television
Kennedy had traveled extensively in Europe in her youth, spoke French and loved the culture — and the couture. In June 1961, she tapped Hubert de Givenchy to design the wardrobe for her first official trip abroad as first lady, to her beloved France.
Understandably, she was also under pressure to promote American-made fashion, which meant she would often turn to local talents, including Oleg Cassini, Norman Norell and the boutique Chez Ninon, to create looks inspired — sometimes stitch-by-stitch — by the French fashion houses. Her signature pillbox hats, though, were all-American and came courtesy of Halston.
Balancing French and American fashion wasn’t Kennedy’s only challenge as first lady. Always hyper-conscious about her public image, she also relied on vibrant color, and sharp lines to project a modern and distinctive look.
Pamela Golbin, the author, fashion historian and former chief curator of fashion and textile at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, said Kennedy became first lady at a moment “when television became front and center in the lives of millions of people, so relaying a visual message that was both striking, clear and strong was extremely important. She was acutely sensitive to the fashion message, and was able to convey the modernism that her husband brought to the political arena through her clothes.”
Valerie Steele, the fashion historian, director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, said Kennedy, like Queen Elizabeth II, knew how to make herself instantly recognizable in a crowd by using bold color, and defined silhouettes.
Jackie Kennedy’s Chanel-inspired, American-made pink suit Nov. 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It is stored at The National Archives in a climate-controlled vault.
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“Mrs. Kennedy was really great at it. When she went to India, she wore bright Indian colors. She understood that if you wore a striking color and had a simple look, people would grasp right away who you were. It’s not just a question of fashion, but also a fashion at a distance, how it plays out in pictures, the message, the semiotics of it have to be fairly simple,” she said.
Golbin added that Kennedy was successful in weaving together French and American style to create a distinctive look, but she wasn’t the only one doing it.
Claude Pompidou, who was first lady of France from 1969 until 1974, had a similar “energy,” according to Golbin. “France fully entered the fashion diplomacy platform with her. Her wardrobe projected the modern avant-garde [spirit] of her husband Georges Pompidou, and of post-war France,” she said.
At the time, Pompidou wore haute couture by younger designers, including Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges, “and really crystallized this notion of using fashion as a visual language to portray the key elements of the platform that her husband was trying to get across. All of the [French] first ladies after that continued to do so,” Golbin added.
Flying the French Flag
After Kennedy, fashion-loving first ladies Nancy Reagan and Melania Trump carried on the love affair with French fashion, albeit to a lesser extent than Kennedy. Reagan wore Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino in addition to American designers James Galanos and Adolfo, longtime favorites of California’s Ladies Who Lunch.
Trump often wears Christian Dior for official occasions. Last month she chose a pale delphinium pink silk strapless gown from Jonathan Anderson’s haute couture collection for a state dinner at the White House with King Charles III and Queen Camilla. She’s also been snapped wearing Louis Vuitton and Givenchy, while her stylist, the designer Hervé Pierre, is French American.
By contrast, French first ladies almost exclusively fly the national flag.
“Fashion and luxury are very important sectors in France, symbolically and economically. France remains the land of haute couture and fashion shows that attract people from around the world several times a year. First ladies want to present and promote the fashion economy,” said Elizabeth Pineau, a political journalist at Reuters and coauthor of “Le Vestiaire des Politiques,” which looks at what male and female politicians wear, and why.
Michelle Obama in an Azzedine Alaïa jacket, Etro print top, Moschino white top and Gunex black pant and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in a Dior coat in Strasbourg, France.
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Every first lady has had her favorite French designers. Current French First Lady Brigitte Macron frequently wears Louis Vuitton and is particularly close to Nicolas Ghesquière, but also wears designs by Balmain, and blazers and coats by Alexandre Vauthier. Her predecessor Carla Bruni’s closets were bursting with Dior, but also with pieces by Chanel and Christian Louboutin shoes.
As soon as she stepped into the political spotlight, Bernadette Chirac started wearing Chanel and Dior, which was designed by John Galliano at the time. She was also the woman who gave Princess Diana a handbag from the house that was later named the Lady Dior because the royal wore it so much, and in many so different colors.
When a French first lady goes off-piste, and opts for a non-French designer, it’s a cause célèbre.
In an interview, Pineau recalled the scandal that Nicolas Sarkozy’s now ex-wife, Cécilia Attias, caused in May 2007 when she appeared at her husband’s inauguration wearing a champagne silk dress by the very Milanese label Prada.
“She caused quite a stir at the Élysée Palace. Everyone noticed that she was in Prada. It was very unusual for a French first lady,” she said. The Sarkozys divorced later that year, so flying the French flag may not have mattered much to the former first lady.
Speaking a Different Language
Pineau believes that when American first ladies host their international counterparts or travel on official business, “they’re more diplomatic than the French. When Melania Trump comes to France she wears Dior. The French, instead, think about their own country’s luxury and fashion.”
Steele of MFIT said former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama took her sartorial messaging a step further. As first lady she made an extra effort to showcase and promote under-the-radar American talent at home, and abroad.
“A lot of first ladies, like Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton, wore nice American fashion brands like Oscar de la Renta for events, but Mrs. Obama was more interesting in as much as she chose smaller brands, often by people of color or immigrants, and highlighted talented and lesser-known designers. What she did was very, very original and important, and helped to highlight those designers more than almost anything else could have,” Steele said.
She added that President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 was a day to remember, with the first lady dressed in a yellow-gold, custom-made dress and matching coat by Isabel Toledo.
Ronald and Nancy Reagan attend the U.S. president’s second-term inauguration in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 1985.
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“That was so exciting. Isabel is such a genius, but was little known. I remember we did a big exhibition about Isabel’s work at the museum at FIT, and we had that dress front and center. Boy, did we have huge numbers of people coming to see it. There was so much interest in the outfit,” she said.
Michelle Obama would continue that effort later that day, wearing a gown by the young designer Jason Wu to the Inauguration Ball.
Reagan, Steele said, did her duty to her country in a different way. Being from California she celebrated the designers there, and wore Adolfo — and red — much of the time. “Red, a color associated for more than 100 years with communism, became associated with Republicans, in large part because Mrs. Reagan wore so much red,” she said.
For all the sartorial signaling that goes on in the U.S., France and elsewhere, Steele believes diplomatic messages don’t always land the way they’re meant to.
“Clothes are one of the easiest ways that we communicate, nonverbally, but we never know how much of the message gets through. When Mrs. Obama wore Isabel, I was thrilled, but most people probably thought, ‘Who’s she wearing?’ or ‘What a strange color that suit is.’ When people talk to me about fashion being a language, I always say I think of it more as being like music. It might evoke a mood, but it usually doesn’t say something directly,” she said.
