Michelle Obama and the Alleged $2.7 Billion Clothing Stimulus
**Written by Doug Powers
Desperate to report on an area of the economy that an Obama is having a positive effect on instead of laying waste to like a Mt. Vesuvius belching up horrible policy and fatally engulfing the Pompeii of US commerce, some are turning to the clothing world:
In their latest Business Review, Harvard, that fashion-obsessed place a quick private plane ride north of us, had an analyst assess the monetary value Michelle Obama has on fashion labels she wears publicly. Apparently when Michelle wears something, that company’s stock spikes upward.
If it’s not the label seeing a gain, stores that carry the labels, like Saks, stand to benefit. From November 2008 to December 2009, David Yermack counted that Michelle made 189 public appearances, and wore items by or sold at 29 publicly traded companies, including J.Crew, the Gap, Dillard’s, and DSW. The total value generated by those appearances for those companies was $2.7 billion, while Yermack estimates the total value of a single public appearance at $14 million.
In 2009, Michelle Obama began a kick to get people to start eating healthy foods, but McDonalds stock and profit also spiked upward. Did it ever occur to the Harvard Biz Review that people are doing the opposite of what she says and are only buying new clothes because their old ones don’t fit anymore?
The “$2.7 billion wardrobe” claim is a head-scratcher (maybe the president can ask the Mythbusters to take it on), because all I’ve read this year is how designers who have had the First Lady wear their clothes are going out of business faster than you can say Hope & Change.
Just this year that I’m aware of, two of Michelle Obama’s favorite designers have offered contradictory evidence that FLOTUS might in fact be the Bermuda Triangle of fashion designers.
First, Maria Pinto:
The signs of Maria Pinto’s rise were clear when Michelle Obama entered the world stage wearing her designs, also favored by Oprah Winfrey.
Today the signs on Pinto’s Chicago shop say something different: “Closeout.” “Final Sale.”
Pinto is closing her Chicago boutique with a liquidation sale through Saturday offering discounts of up to 70 percent on her clothing, some of which is priced at thousands of dollars per piece.
The designer blames a poor economy, but the closing also may call into a question the notion that a fashionable first lady could single-handedly save an on-the-verge designer.
Then Kai Milla:
Kai Milla’s eponymous clothing line has shut down, and the cash-strapped business has failed to pay vendors for months, sources claim.
Milla, wife of Stevie Wonder, founded the women’s contemporary line in 2005 and received acclaim from the fashion press, including a spread in Harper’s Bazaar and an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
Milla’s height of popularity came after First Lady Michelle Obama wore a green silk sleeveless dress by the designer in February 2009, when Wonder was awarded a Gershwin Prize from the Library of Congress and gave a performance at the White House.
There didn’t appear to be a stampede of business toward these two women to get Michelle-esque clothing (you’d think that the alleged “$14 million per public appearance” generated could keep somebody whose design was worn by the First Lady open for a looong time), so it’s safe to consider that there may be other reasons the aforementioned clothing companies stock spiked.
Taking the claim at face value, however, we see that $2.7 billion is still only .09% of the debt Michelle Obama’s husband has managed to accumulate in under two years. By my count, FLOTUS will have to do 4,647 fashion industry stimulating clothing changes a day for the remainder of her husband’s term in order to come even close to making up the difference.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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“There didn’t appear to be a stampede of business toward these two women to get Michelle-esque clothing”
On the other hand curtain designers have seen a spike in business ever since Michelle became First lady.
You mean MichellO and Oprah together couldn’t save them? The clothes must be hideous.
How well are Mom jeans selling? Has Obama added billions in value to that market?
Just curious: did demand for mom jeans and dork bicycles spike when Obummer was photographed on vacation?
Great minds, Alohaguy…
How have the fotunes of bankruptcy lawyers been stimulated as a result of Obamanomics?
Indeed, but I’d forgotten the bicycle with sand dune tires.
Doug, the above statement says it all. This is the Harvard Business Review, in other words they were talking about what rich yuppy NE liberals are wearing this year (not any of the gun clinging, bible clutching, angry tea party serfs).
I’d like to see her wear one of those T-Shirts the Chilean miners put on when they came up out of the hole.
She wouldn’t do it, though.
The shirt praises God, not Government.
Is the pix from the show “What Not To Wear?”
Heard the clip of Oprah saying Obama is The One again today. She and Michelle O need to form a clothes line called Big Bones.
What do you mean – I have a yellow/orange furry trim on my pants just like hers – I only wish I’d thought to wear the wide purple belt with it.
Leftist strongholds: Clothing (sort of), Entertainment, and Government (gangbusters). Anything of substance that makes a positive difference in peoples’ lives: nope.
The mens line could be called Small Sticks.
I was thinking Dorks with Sporks, but yours works nicely too.
How about Ham Hocks?, Chunky Trunks?
Daisy Dorks?
soooo, one year and she can’t pay the rent? Rubbish.
A clear indication that Congress must let the Bush tax cuts expire, so that these designer fashions can be distributed to UAW wives as part of the bailout; paid for, full price, with taxpayer dollars.
Is that the women’s or the men’s line of clothing? On second thought, it would work for either.
and that pic? a monstrous easter egg.
Or big something… HERE
How about Double-Wide Fashions?
But can she see weight watchers from the White House?
Riiight. It has nothing to do with the receipts from Remy Martin-drenched parties with Kanye, does it?
Well, no wonder, with a name like that!
Might as well have opened the Edsel Boutique.
If they make mom jeans, aren’t they ‘too big to fail’?
Hugh Jass Designs
I bought socks and underwear-Bitter Halfs- last week-do I get a tax credit?
What company supplies her scowls?
I’ll buy stock in that company!
Then logically speaking, there must be a huge demand at plastic surgeons across the country to get one of those “Michelle O” butt implants.
No?…anyone there?…is this mike on?
My mama was right. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. You’d think with all her exposure to some of the world’s most beautiful women that some taste and a little refinement would rub off. Naw, she’d rather dress like someone fresh off a street corner.
Show of hands here – is anyone really surprised those designers couldn’t cut it in the fashion world?
Badongathongs
I guess when you have a can the size of the National Debt, oh well you get the drift.
jrgdds, now that is bad. Its like being between Barack and a hard place.
Gads, this mo can go to the ‘woman’s size(aka huge)’ at wal mart and find better looking outfits than this mo wears everytime I have seen her! Now, I know I am tacky (the gal thing), but a woman Does not wear a cake dress, Period.
L
MO looks like a model for “Everlast”.
The First Badonkadonk promoting a line called ‘Just my Width’???
Big seller to Prez Kanye’s cabinet, supreme court and stable of czarinas.
Stable? I’m being kind!
With the way Mo keeps packing on the pounds, it’s no wonder no one is buying from her designers. Mo wears burqas without the hood. No need to call that design.
He’s right, no one ever shopped at Gap, J.Crew and DSW before Michelle Obama shopped there. They sell $800 sneakers at the Gap?
I can’t imagine anyone buying her style clothes unless they want their arse to look like hers. Seriously, there has to be more flattering stuff than that! I haven’t liked anything she has worn so far, especially that horrible thing she wore down to the oil spill…remember, the one that looked like the oil spilled all over her? How strange that was!
There may be something to this, I heard there’s been a run on drop cloths, tarps and couch covers at Home Depot, and ‘Omar The Tent-Maker’ has been seen driving a new Mercedes.
Anyone who buys and wears clothes just because they saw it on a celeb truely has a mental image dis-order. Probably covered under ObamaCare.
Oh please…
I want to see the p-value of this analysis (I bet it’s much greater than 0.05) and the assumptions used with respect to stock price comparison dates.
This type of study can be highly influenced by the bias of the analyst.
My God, that picture. Even Hillary wouldn’t wear that.
hahahahahahahahahaha!
Spacey, you get today’s Blue Ribbon for that!
Hey, my wife shops at those stores and we eat at McDonalds! This can’t be a coincidence. It looks like we’ve got the Midas touch.
Yes, we are available for interviews.
YOUR going into bankruptcy and YOUR going into bankruptcy and YOUR going. . . .
All the labels now use a new measurement standard called Axe Handles.
As in 2 axe handles wide, 3 axe handles wide etc.
I remember Bess Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt had the same effect on the clothing industry.
Sorry, but I can’t take advice from MO. That big bird outfit in the pic above did it for me.
I don’t remember ever seeing a First Lady dress so frumpily when venturing out into public. Our FLOTUS should never look like she stepped out of a Walmart dressing room…but tha’t just me.
wait a minute everyone! She’s digging up the WH ‘garden’ for a photo op! AP has a video. But, gads! The voice on that woman would shrivel a bull’s testes.
What lady would not want one of these after seeing MO in it?
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z92/69malibu3speed/TheO-Pinata.jpg
(takes a quick peek down pants) What the…?! She ain’t lyin!