No doubt you recall the media sensation First Lady Michelle Obama caused last month when she debuted her new hairstyle on the eve of President Obama’s inauguration.
Everyone was singing its praises. I, on the other hand, sounded this discordant note:
I’m not feelin’ it. It makes her look too much like a grown woman trying too hard to look young.
Mind you, I considered this nothing more than relatively benign, tongue-in-cheek critique, which I appended at the end of a comprehensive review of the inauguration in Obama Inauguration: Take 2, The iPINIONS Journal, January 23, 2013.
Yet, based on the tongue-lashing I received, you’d think I said she looked like a Black bimbo. Specifically, even more than questioning my taste, her defenders damned me to anti-Obama purgatory for ascribing to this serene lady the superficial motive of trying too hard to look young.
Well, to all of them I say, eat this:
This is my mid-life crisis, the bangs. I couldn’t get a sports car. They won’t let me bungee jump. So instead, I cut my bangs.
(Huffington Post, February 19, 2013)
For this is how Michelle herself affirmed my critique. What’s more, no less a person than style guru Karl Lagerfeld affirmed my taste as follows:
Frankly, the fringe was a bad idea. It’s not good.
(Vanity Fair, January 30, 2013)
And in case you’re wondering, “fringe” is Karl’s French for bangs….
More interesting, though, who would’ve thought this first lady would be the woman to destroy the sexist myth that midlife crisis is a pathetic malady that only affects egotistical men … with low T?
At any rate, for the record, I adore Michelle. Nonetheless, I think any before-and-after comparison will attest to my view that she looked not only better but even younger without that fringe.
So here’s to the “old” Michelle.
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