Michelle Obama's looks, from left: Inauguration (January 20, 2009); Healthy-eating program (September

24, 2010); State dinner: China (January 19, 2011) Getty Images (3)

Every first lady makes an impression, whether she means to or not. Some arrive at the White House

already well versed in the sartorial requirements of the job — what Lady Bird Johnson referred to as "the

harness of hairdo and gloves." Others resent the expectations or struggle with the language of imagery

out of insecurity or ambivalence or a failure to grasp why what makes them feel comfortable should be

any business of the public's. Although she finally found her groove in Oscar de la Renta pantsuits, Hillary

Clinton confesses in her memoir, Living History, that she was slow to understand that her appearance

was no longer solely a representation of herself: "I was asking the American people to let me represent

them in a role that has conveyed everything from glamour to motherly comfort."

In Michelle Obama's case, her image has provided a welcome distraction from the challenges and

criticisms her husband faced in his first two years in office. Whereas most First Ladies symbolize an

Administration's psychological subtext, Obama has done the opposite. The Administration muddles along;

the President's popularity dips and dives — Mrs. Obama just puts her best outfit forward. She is as

unflappable running a relay race in a pair of athletic pants as she is standing serenely on the steps of the

North Portico in a glamorous evening gown. And she seems undaunted by risk taking, never plagued by

second guessing, unafraid of making a statement. For the state dinner on Jan. 19 welcoming the President of China, Obama wore a brilliant crimson gown by British designer Sarah Burton of Alexander

McQueen. Although some Seventh Avenue designers expressed disappointment that she didn't go with

an American designer, the First Lady's diplomatic nod to her guest in the chosen color was impossible to

miss.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Michelle Obama — and it is the essence of her style — is her

ability to finesse the differences between what Eleanor Roosevelt called the person and the persona: the

private self and the projected public image. The effortless way Obama carries herself suggests not only

that she has mastered the art of blending person and persona but also that she has resolved one of the

contradictions that have plagued working women in America for the better part of a century. Which is to

say, the mistaken but deeply entrenched belief that style and substance define two mutually exclusive

paths and that a woman has to choose one or the other.

You can see this contradiction played out in the two approaches First Ladies have taken throughout

history. The style line runs from Dolley Madison to Jackie Kennedy and includes First Ladies who used

style and image to advance their husbands' agendas and cultivate their own influence. The other line

follows the course of 20th century feminism. It runs from Eleanor Roosevelt to Hillary Clinton — those

First Ladies who broke with the traditional limits of the role and threw themselves into the political fray,

testifying at congressional hearings, challenging conventions and championing causes.

Given her widespread reputation as one of the most stylish women ever to inhabit the White House, you

might think Michelle Obama automatically belongs in the Madison-Kennedy lineage. But her background

argues differently. No one can claim that Michelle Obama doesn't know what it's like to work or that she

entered marriage because she didn't get an education and lacked economic power of her own. It is plain

that she has learned as much if not more from the example of Hillary Clinton as from the example of

Jackie Kennedy.

What makes Obama exceptional is that she seems so at home in both camps. So at home that the whole

debate about style and substance suddenly seems passé, an anachronism of the gender wars, a false

dichotomy enforced by narrow-minded men and women at war with themselves. That Michelle Obama

does not see style and substance as an either-or choice is a powerful statement that the underlying

assumptions about women's roles and images have changed. Embodying the confluence of substance

and style, she has helped reconcile the long-standing antagonism between them. She has, in some

sense, made them one and the same.

Betts is the author of Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style