링크는 백악관의 First Lady 홈페이지에서 가져 온 것입니다. 부시 대통령의 두 딸들이 입을 드레스들도 같이 나왔네요.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/inauguration.html

아래는 뉴욕 타임즈지의 관련 기사입니다. 힐러리 클린턴 상원의원이 백악관에 있을 때 디자이너였던 Oscar de la Renta가 정권이 바뀐 다음에도 계속 옷 디자인을 맡았던 모양이네요^^ 첫 취임식 때는 텍사스 출신 디자이너한테 맡겼었다는 것 같구요. 대통령 취임행사 때 입었던 옷은 스미소니언 박물관에 기증하는 것이 전통이라고 하네요. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/laura.gown/

그나저나 어제 출근하며 전차 안에서 옆 사람이 읽는 신문을 보니까 취임행사에 초대 받은 사람들이 부시 대통령 측에 기부한 액수만 현재 1억 8천만 달러라고 하더군요^^;; 대개 기업들일테니 반대급부를 기대할텐데 액수가 얼마나 될지 가늠이 안 가네요 :-( 제가 지금 살고 있는 캘리포니아에 몇 주째 계속 내리는 비와 산사태에 짜증 내던 제 미국인 직장 동료는 "동아시아에는 날씨가 나쁘거나 흉작이 들면 왕이 처형되던 때가 있었다"고 하니 그거 아주 좋은 전통이라면서 당장 미국에도 그런 걸 도입해야 할 거라면서 열을 내더군요-_- 제가 이 게시판에서만 소수파가 아니라는 걸 새삼 느꼈습니다-_-b

What the First Lady Will Wear
By RUTH LA FERLA

Published: January 11, 2005

Laura Bush has made her choice. Ending weeks of speculation on Seventh Avenue about what she would wear on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Mrs. Bush said Monday that Oscar de la Renta would design her inaugural ball gown, a dress that for a time at least will be the most scrutinized in the country.

The silver-blue tulle gown, embroidered with bugle beads and outlined in Austrian crystals, is the stately if conventional centerpiece in a wardrobe Mrs. Bush will wear during four days of festivities in Washington, including 10 balls, candlelight dinners, a parade and fireworks.

In addition to Mr. de la Renta, a longtime couturier to the fashionable elite, designers for Mrs. Bush's wardrobe include Carolina Herrera, who fills a similar niche, and Peggy Jennings, a little-known designer who has been quietly wardrobing Mrs. Bush from her apartment at the Waldorf Towers in Manhattan for two years.

The president's daughters, Jenna and Barbara, will be dressed by Badgley Mischka, Lela Rose, Derek Lam and Mr. de la Renta for the inaugural festivities.

The first lady's wardrobe is sure to be studied for clues about her evolving personal style and even for hints about the overall tone of the White House in the next four years. "The first lady is certainly a reflection as to the man holding the office," Mr. de la Renta said. He was reluctant to ascribe special significance to Mrs. Bush's sartorial choices, which are more glamorous than anything the White House has seen since the Reagan years.

But another observer, Catherine Allgor, a historian of first lady style, suggested that in anointing Mr. de la Renta and Mrs. Herrera, mainstays of taste among wealthy women, Mrs. Bush appears to be displaying a growing awareness that "her power is entrenched." "She has gone from being just folks to being a bit imperial, assuming a bit more of a queenly role," said Ms. Allgor, the author of "Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government" (University Press of Virginia, 2002).

Mrs. Bush, who during her husband's first term sometimes professed an aversion to fashion, preferring straight-fitting, neutral and matronly suits that concealed her shape, has reversed herself. She has embraced Seventh Avenue to the point of visiting Mr. de la Renta and Mrs. Herrera in their design showrooms — a departure from White House tradition.

Bush watchers point out that Mr. de la Renta and Mrs. Herrera are light years in sophistication from the image Mrs. Bush conceived four years ago by employing Michael Faircloth, a little-known Texas designer, to make her scarlet lace gown for the inauguration.

The dress was much deprecated by style-watchers. Since then, Mrs. Bush has projected a more feminine, worldly image, and she seems more conscious of her role as a symbol of state. "Mrs. Bush has very successfully created a strong iconography for herself," said Hamish Bowles, an editor of Vogue who was curator of an exhibition on the style of Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2001. "She is less provincial, more urbane, but still on the safe side," he said, adding that her image is "calculated not to frighten the horses."

There is nothing intimidating about Mr. de la Renta's ice-blue ball gown. To judge from the sketches released by the White House on Monday, it has a reassuringly familiar look, reminiscent in spirit and in silhouette of the gowns James Galanos designed for Nancy Reagan in the 1980's.

Since 2001, Mrs. Bush's fashion sense has ripened with nudges from her daughters and design world friends. She appeared with President Bush to claim victory in the election in November dressed in a pale pink suit by Ms. Jennings that discreetly showed off her figure, slimmed down to a size 6, the designer said over the weekend. Ms. Jennings has designed a rose-colored hand-beaded lace gown that Mrs. Bush will wear to candlelight dinners on Jan. 19.

In addition, she will wear a raspberry-colored striped silk shirtdress by Mrs. Herrera to the Texas State Society's black tie and boots ball on Jan. 19. Mrs. Bush will pay for all of her dresses, said Gordon Johndroe, her press secretary.

In Vogue this month, the first lady is photographed modeling a streamlined Herrera suit and a deep blue silk shirtwaist gown by Mr. de la Renta, accessorized with amber beads that match her hair, which was clipped for a youthfully breezy look by Sally Hershberger, who shears the heads of the Hollywood elite.

Through Mr. Johndroe, Mrs. Bush acknowledged that she is increasingly taking style cues from her 22-year-old twin daughters, who have been dressed by New York arbiters of hip like Zac Posen and Narciso Rodriguez. "Mrs. Bush has really enjoyed working with some of the designers Barbara and Jenna favor," Mr. Johndroe said.

The glamorization of Mrs. Bush's image began as far back as the aftermath of the 2001 inauguration. Preparing to have her photographed for Vogue, Anna Wintour, the magazine's editor, requested that Mr. de la Renta provide some clothes. The designer, who dressed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the White House, balked at first. "I didn't think Mrs. Bush would want to wear my clothes," he recalled. "I had been so closely identified with Mrs. Clinton."

But Mrs. Bush, it seemed, had notions of her own. "She arrived at the shoot with a red suit of mine that she had bought in Austin, Tex.," Mr. de la Renta said, and specifically asked to see more of his work. He has been dressing her since.

What he did not acknowledge is that coaxing Mrs. Bush out of the prim, upholstered-looking suits she once favored is a job requiring a vast reservoir of tact.

"You have to be very diplomatic to dress a president's wife," said Arnold Scaasi, who has wardrobed his share, including Barbara Bush, the president's mother; Mrs. Kennedy; and Mamie Eisenhower. "You must tell them nicely that they didn't look too great before you, and would look so much better now if they would only listen to you. "

Ms. Jennings, who met with Mrs. Bush last Saturday for a fitting in Manhattan, prides herself on having persuaded Mrs. Bush to wear more form-fitting, feminine clothes. "The first gown that I made for her I took the liberty of making the neckline too low," Ms. Jennings said. She recalled that Mrs. Bush responded with tact. " `You know, Peggy,' the first lady told me, `maybe this would look nicer if the neckline were a little higher,' " Ms. Jennings recalled, adding that she recut the dress.

For designers inaugural commissions are well worth it. For prestige they know no equal, not even a dress for the Oscars. "Designing for the first lady is the best sort of attention you can get," Mr. Scaasi said, translating into dresses that are widely copied and widely ordered by stores.

Mr. Faircloth, whose star has faded a bit since Inauguration Day in 2001, still designs for Mrs. Bush. As a fashion billboard, she trumps any celebrity, he said. "Celebrities are like chameleons, playing many different roles in their careers and in their fashion statements," he said. "I feel more in line with someone who wants to create a consistent image."

Mr. Scaasi agreed. "There are 2,700 girls out there that have a one-night shot and stardom, and then you never see them again," he scoffed. "The first family is beyond all that."