First Lady Michelle Obama Honors Fashion Designers At White House Luncheon

Michelle Obama recently honored design visionaries at a White House luncheon for the recipients of the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards. This marks her sixth year as honorary patron of the NDAs. The First Lady looked elegant in a deep purple dress designed by Narciso Rodriguez, one of this year's recipients. According to Women's Wear Daily, she said that women everywhere should feel fortunate Rodriguez went into the field of fashion instead of becoming a lawyer, doctor or dentist.

 "What I discover is that these men and women are some of the most daring and creative minds in the world," she said. "From a designer at Google who's using data and crowd-sourcing to create art that will take your breath away, to the former Hollywood set designers who are now creating some of the most unique buildings and interiors that you'll ever see. And then there's this fashion designer whose parents tried to convince him to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a dentist, or something like that."

In an interview after the luncheon, Rodriguez confirmed that fashion was something he was "very serious about early on. When I meet with students or people interested in a career of fashion, I always tell them if this is something serious that you want to do, you never take 'no' for an answer."

The First Lady's efforts to support fashion designers doesn't stop here. Obama will host the first Fashion Education Workshop on October 8 at the White House, which will bring together high school and university students, fashion designers, magazine editors and "fashion technologists" for a five-hour event that will include workshops, a luncheon featuring the First Lady and a panel discussion. This takes place during National Design Week, which runs from October 4–14, and is sponsored by Target Corp.

In addition to Rodriguez, this year's NDA winners are Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar, the creative team behind the New York-based brand design firm Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, for the Lifetime Achievement award; Witold Rybczynski for Design Mind; Etsy for Corporate & Institutional Achievement; Brooks + Scarpa for Architecture Design; the San Francisco-based studio Office for Communication Design; Aaron Koblin for Interaction Design; Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors for Interior Design; Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture for Landscape Architecture, and LUNAR for Product Design.