Mrs. Woodrow Wilson finally gets told

Michelle Obama went under Tim Gunn’s fashion microscope and got an approving nod, but not all first ladies fared as well — Hillary Rodham Clinton among them. Gunn and a panel of fashion experts reviewed the fashion sense of the nation’s first ladies at a National Archives forum Tuesday, and found plenty of dos and don’ts. Gunn rated Mrs. Obama’s style sense as “divine.” Jacqueline Kennedy he deemed a “style-setter.” But he wondered why Edith Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson, felt compelled to play amateur seamstress and remake her dresses over and over. As a designer, Wilson “would have been the first one out on Project Runway,” the fashion consultant and TV personality joked. “She was having difficulty making it work,” Gunn said, in a play on his trademark admonition to “make it work.” As for possible future administrations, Gunn said Clinton has been looking “very presidential lately. There’s definitely an evolution that’s been taking place. The bar has been raised.” Other panellists said it had taken Clinton some time to warm up to the idea that a first lady’s style reflects on her husband’s administration. “I just feel like it’s not important to her,” designer Tracy Reese said. “Public service is very important, but her appearance is down on the list. Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, said Clinton’s signature style from her days as first lady was “the famous pantsuit and the hair problems.” Looking further back in history to the 1800s, Steele noted that in the days of Sarah Polk, wife to James Polk, women wanted to show off a tiny waist, hands and feet, but have “plump, voluptuous shoulders and a big, big butt.” “That sounds like Nicki Minaj, J.Lo and Kim K.,” Reese declared. She eyed a picture of an ivory brocade dress of Polk’s with a flouncy bottom and wondered aloud, “Can you imagine Kim Kardashian in that?”