Ladish Fashion & dress

First Ladies and Sleeveless Dresses

The whole issue of how much skin is "socially acceptable" to show in public by First Ladies has been ongoing from almost the start of the presidency.

When Dolley Madison famously wore her low-cut dresses that showed off her shoulders and the top of her bosom, former First Lady Abigail Adams snidely remarked in a private letter that Mrs. Madison looked like "a nursing mother." There was a famous anecdote about Dolley Madison encountering an old friend who, like her, had been a Quaker, but left the faith. She looked at his head and saw he was no longer wearing the large black hat that Quaker men traditionally did (like the fellow on the Quaker Oats box). "Brother," she asked, "where is thy broadbrim?" He looked at her gown without sleeves or neck and with plunging neckline and quipped back. "Sister, where is thy kerchief?"

When Frances Cleveland, the 21 year old bride of President Cleveland, wore gowns without sleeves and showed off her shoulders, the Women's Christian Temperance Union circulated a petition pleading for her to cover up her skin because she was a bad influence on the morals of young American girls.

In recent years, Nancy Reagan often wore sleeveless and shoulderless evening gowns to state dinners, but during the daytime dressed more formally and covered.

What does all this mean? Nothing really - except they wear what they feel comfortable wearing.