party report

Benjamin Cho Wishes Michelle Obama Could Be a Little More Sophisticated

Benjamin Cho played D.J. at the Madison Avenue Sony store party last night, but music wasn’t the only noise he was making. First he explained that earlier in the day he’d decided to cancel his presentation, originally slated for February 17. “For the first time I thought it was a little bit obnoxious to throw a fashion show for myself,” he explained.

“It’s close to my ten-year anniversary, so I was going to do some retrospective stuff. But then I came up with all of these great new ideas that are really labor-intensive. I was only going to do like ten of these things and have a presentation at a loft space. Then I thought — what a waste of people’s time. For the dressmaking lovers, I thought they’d love it. But for everyone else, it’s a waste of time.” Cho says he was even thinking of offering on-the-spot massages, but then concluded it was “so corny and not [his] thing to do.”

He didn’t reserve his judgments for himself, either. He had this to say about Michelle Obama: “She gets a little bit misguided when she gets to wear so many outfits … [at the inauguration] it got a little cheesy.” So what would he dress her in? “I shouldn’t say this … probably in something a little more sophisticated, not so much pearly and gloves. I know she’s going for American, and American is sort of the opposite of that thing. I just notice that American designers are doing so many vintagey looks, and I hate retro. So I don’t like going that route, regardless of the Jackie O. thing. It would be nice if she wore like a Jil Sander shift dress. Or something interesting like that — more sophisticated.”

Benjamin Cho Wishes Michelle Obama Could Be a Little More Sophisticated