Change...

your outfit!

Designer Narciso Rodriguez was responsible for that...garment... Michelle Obama wore on election night. It was a more conservative version of the original. As far as I'm concerned, it looks as if a paint can had exploded in the vicinity, and the designer didn't care to clean up the mess. It seems Obama's mantra of "Change" is certainly taking effect, starting with the wardrobe. It isn't as if Rodriguez is incapable of elegant designs (see here and here); it's just that Mrs. Obama seems to have set aside her usually tasteful attire and decided to go for, to put it kindly, flair. Let us hope it was a one-time thing.

How else might D.C. transform under the Obamas? Christopher Buckley opines, “He’s a cool cat, and I think he’s going to bring cool catness back, if it ever existed at the White House.” (Ah, just what we need.) Others speculate he'll eschew boring tradition and convention in favor of things more hip.

"There’s an older generation here that clings to, you know, the Gridiron Club and the White House Correspondents’ dinner, and certain institutions,” said Frank Mankiewicz, a longtime Democratic operative and former press secretary to Robert F. Kennedy. “We go to the Corcoran, the Smithsonian, the I. M. Pei Wing of the National Gallery. I have a feeling those things will diminish in importance, and other institutions will take their place.”

Visits to D.C. Poetry Slams, then? All night jam sessions at Blues Alley? The Sol LeWitt wing of the National Gallery (whose art is so uninteresting he leaves it to others to compose his works for him)? Isn't that where the cool cats go?