Michelle Obama is an impressive woman.
The ivy league educated leader earned her bachelor’s from Princeton University and a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School.
The White House described her as a “lawyer, writer, and the wife of the 44th President, Barack Obama and the first African-American First Lady of the United States.”
What’s missing in that description is her deep influence in various markets, particularly fashion.
Vanity Fair previously reported that in the eight years she was FLOTUS, Michelle Obama drove more than $2.7 billion to the “retail sector.”
“In 2010, New York University business professor David Yermack, calculated that Obama’s fashion choices alone have driven $2.7 billion to the retail sector,” Vanity Fair said back in 2016.
They also highlighted that companies saw “a 2.3 percent stock gain when she dons their products—five times that of a typical celebrity endorsement.”
Fellow FLOTUS fashion icon, Jackie Kennedy was a huge influencer, but the Harvard Business Review stated that only Michelle Obama was able to sway fashion markets in the way she did.
“The stock price gains of the companies whose clothes she wore in public appearances—29 brands in all—are cumulative abnormal returns. That is, the returns cannot be attributed to normal market variations,” he pointed out. “Some companies that sell clothes that Obama frequently wears, such as Saks, have realized long-term gains.”
Her authentic approach to fashion was a large part of her influence as she wasn’t paid to wear designers — thus building trust among observers. Secondly, wears a myriad of look with high and low price points. She also further built trust by intentionally choosing BIPOC designers. For example, she opted to attend day one of the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Tracy Reese.