Certain First Ladies have a signature color as well as signature cause. Barbara Bush wore royal blue. Laura Bush favored red. And Mamie Eisenhower preferred pink. The gown she wore to Ike’s 1953 inauguration was a departure from the wartime styles of the previous decade, Graddy says: as people conserved materials in a mournful time, women’s silhouettes had become slimmer and more militaristic; hemlines had gotten shorter. “This was start again of much more celebratory inaugurations,” Graddy says—which would explain why Mamie didn’t skimp on the rhinestones. Her pink peau-de-soie gown is covered with more than 2,000 of them.
Belles of the Ball: An Insider’s Look at Inaugural Gowns
As the fashion industry speculates about what Michelle Obama will wear this Monday, we look back at other memorable inauguration gowns through history
Mamie Eisenhower, 1953: Pretty in Pink
Full List
Inaugural Gowns
- Inaugural Gowns Through History: The Way They Wore
- Edith Roosevelt, 1905: A Practical Matter
- Helen Taft, 1909: The Dress That Started It All
- Eleanor Roosevelt, 1933: The Inauguration Veteran
- Mamie Eisenhower, 1953: Pretty in Pink
- Lady Bird Johnson, 1965: Thinking Long Term
- Pat Nixon, 1969: A Bolero for the Ball
- Nancy Reagan, 1981: California Glam
- Rosalynn Carter, 1977: Something Old, Something New
- Barbara Bush, 1989: A Close Call
- Hillary Clinton, 1993: Picking Purple
- Laura Bush, 2001: Scouting Out the Competition
- Michelle Obama, 2009: An Obsession Begins