Uproar over bare arms was used to 'other' me, says Michelle Obama

One of the most powerful images of the first lady of the United States of America is her first official portrait.

- Chloe Mac Donnell

Released by the White House and housed in the National Archives, it commemorates the start of their time in office but also carves out a sense of their identity and style.

Now, 16 years since Michelle Obama appeared in hers wearing a black sleeveless shift dress from the American designer Michael Kors, the former first lady has spoken about the particular outrage caused by her bare arms.

Writing in The Look, a new photo book released today that documents her style throughout her time in the White House, Obama describes how the media and public's "fascination" with her bare arms was used as a tool to "otherise" her.

The book - which also includes insights from Obama's stylist Meredith Koop, as well as designers who dressed her for events - aims to offer an insight into how Obama used fashion as a tool for visibility and representation. The American academic Farah Jasmine Griffin writes in a foreword that Obama's choice of skirts and slacks, and her support of emerging black, Asian and Latina designers, "lent style to her substance, for always she was a woman of substance - a highly educated woman of ideas and opinions, a woman who reads, listens to music, dances, and has a sense of what our country could be and how to help it get there".

Obama's preference for a sleeveless silhouette had been well documented. “Michelle Obama goes sleeveless again”, read a story in the New York Times which highlighted how four out of seven of her looks in a single week had been without sleeves, including a pink dress on the cover of Vogue and a blue one as she was pictured chatting to chefs in the White House kitchen.