Fashion Sense

(Malia Obama in Rome, 7/8/09. Photo Credit: Reuters, we think, via Shakesville)

Lessons for Girls: Geopolitics of Fashion Edition

So, okay, like, you just turned eleven, and all you really want to do is stay home and play Wii all summer, but your dad is, like, the leader of the free world and so your parents drag you off, with your little sister and your grandmother, on a European trip – your second within, like, a month! – and everybody is staring at you and the press is totally in your face and J. Crew is all like, hey, that’s our $298 trench coat she’s wearing and the fauxgressives are all in a dither, going, hey, no fair, hands off the girls, and you’re like, whatever, dudes, and hey, Mom, what should I wear to go to this ice cream parlor in Rome this afternoon? and she’s all, whatever, honey, but you know they call it “gelato” over here, so you figure, oh, heck, I’m just gonna throw on this T-shirt and be done with it, I am so over the whole dress-up thing, I don’t care what anybody thinks, I just want to be cool and comfortable and it won’t matter if I get ice cream on this T-shirt. Gelato, whatever, c’mon, Sasha, let’s go already! Where’s grandma?

PAWS UP and a big snap to Malia Obama for teaching several valuable Lessons for Girls by stepping out in Rome in a T-shirt that has set tongues wagging and fingers pounding around the world. The lessons?

1. You are not what you wear, even if everyone around you is obsessed with what you happen to have on, so wear what you want and to hell with what anybody says.

2. If people are staring at you, stare back -- fiercely, beautifully, directly.

3. Even for the baby diva, shades really are essential equipment. Wear 'em. Work 'em. Janet Jackson on stage at her brother's funeral has got nothing on you, Malia.

4. Your dad may rule the world, but you still have a voice -- and a global stage on which to use it. Daddy is raising troop levels in Afghanistan. Daughter says, Give peace a chance.

5. If, through no fault of your own, you find yourself always moving in a large crowd of people, make damn sure you are the leader of the pack. Take it from a dying old alpha dog, sweetheart, that is the only way to go, but you seem to have figured that out already.

Good for you, Malia. Hope you had fun at the Vatican today. Can't wait to see what you wore there! Happy, safe travels to you and yours. Peace out. Tell your dad we said that, too.