Michelle Obama is an impressive woman.
The educated ivy league leader earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a juris doctor’s degree from Harvard Law School.
The White House has described her as “a lawyer, a writer, and the wife of the 44th President, Barack Obama and the first African-American First Lady of the United States.”
What is missing from this description is its profound influence in various markets, especially fashion.
Vanity Fair previously reported that in the eight years she was on FLOTUS, Michelle Obama drove more than $2.7 billion to the “retail sector”.
“In 2010, New York University business professor David Yermack calculated that Obama’s fashion choices alone generated $2.7 billion in retail,” said Vanity Fair in 2016.
They also pointed out that the companies saw “a 2.3% stock gain when she dons their products, five times more than the typical celebrity endorsement.”
FLOTUS fashion icon Jackie Kennedy was a big influencer, but Harvard Business Review said only Michelle Obama was capable of influencing fashion markets the way she did.
“The stock price gains of the companies whose clothes she wore in public appearances – 29 brands in all – are abnormal cumulative returns. In other words, the returns cannot be attributed to normal market variations,” a- “Some companies that sell clothes that Obama wears frequently, like Saks, have made long-term gains,” he pointed out.
Her authentic approach to fashion was a big part of her influence as she wasn’t paid to wear designers, thus building trust among watchers. Second, carries a myriad of looks with high and low prices. She also built trust by intentionally choosing BIPOC designers. For example, she chose to attend the first day of the 2012 Democratic National Convention at Tracy Reese.
