The Look

The Look, published by Crown in 2025, is the new book from Michelle Obama, co-written with Meredith Koop, the stylist who worked alongside the former first lady for much of her public life, with a foreword by art and African American culture historian Farah Jasmine Griffin. Through more than two hundred photographs and Obama's own first-person accounts, the book traces the evolution of her style from the years of her husband Barack Obama's Senate campaign, through eight years in the White House, to her public life afterward. It is not, however, a simple catalog of outfits and public appearances, the book focuses on how every stylistic choice, from the bright sheath dresses and cardigans of her first-lady years to the tailored suits, denim and braids of her post-presidential period, was always deliberate and considered, often serving a specific role in political and public communication.

Alongside Obama's own voice, the book gathers contributions from those who worked daily on shaping her image, besides Koop, it features makeup artist Carl Ray and hairstylists Yene Damtew, Johnny Wright and Njeri Radway, together with several designers who dressed the former first lady for the most significant occasions of her public career. This chorus of voices allows the book to move beyond the purely aesthetic and become a broader reflection on the relationship between public image and power, particularly for a woman who was the first Black first lady in United States history and had to contend with constant media scrutiny of every detail of her appearance. The book thus joins a tradition of writing about fashion as political language, but does so from the singular vantage point of someone who lived that pressure firsthand for more than fifteen years in the spotlight.

Received very positively by critics and the public, The Look debuted at the top of US nonfiction bestseller lists and won the NAACP Image Award, confirming Michelle Obama's ability, already demonstrated with the bestseller Becoming, to turn an account of her personal experience into a publishing success that appeals to fashion enthusiasts and readers of political and social nonfiction alike.