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Traveling: If American armchair fashion critics are interested in Mrs Obama's wardrobe, Europe's were downright obsessed during her recent visit. She gave them a lot of fodder, starting with the chartreuse Jason Wu dress she wore to touch down in London and continuing her fashion show through a meeting with Queen Elizabeth, and later stops in France, Germany and the Czech Republic. Mrs Obama truly represented the unfussy American aesthetic, especially when she met with Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy, Collins says. "My reading of it was they were dressing to mutually admire each other, and that's the way the women I know dress: so that other women will admire their clothes." Mrs Obama's casual clothes have probably had the biggest makeover since her campaigning days, when she did on occasion wear some dowdier pieces. She now maintains a stylish, pulled-together look. If the family is on the road together, Mrs Obama counts on slim dark pants and ballet-flat shoes to anchor her outfit, and she seems to have a few good pairs of gardening boots for her days on the White House lawn. -The girls: Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, have learned a lesson in consistency from their mother, says Best & Co's Moellering, but their styles probably will evolve over the next four years simply because they are at ages when girls really start developing their own fashion sense.