Michelle: Fashion's first lady

First Lady Michelle Obama has wowed fashion writers with her casual style, use of colour and her penchant for the sleeveless dress at the G20 summit this week.

First Lady Michelle Obama has wowed fashion writers with her casual style, use of colour and her penchant for the sleeveless dress at the G20 summit this week.

Newspapers in Britain and the US were united in their praise for Obama's sartorial choices for outings with

In her drab navy ensemble by Britt Lintner, which Sarah Brown wore to the same engagement, she paled in comparison to Michelle Obama, the fusty matron to the Glamazon - The Telegraph, London

British PM Gordon Brown's wife Sarah, a reception with the Queen at Buckingham Palace and dinner at 10 Downing Street.

The Telegraph newspaper compared Brown unfavourably with Obama, saying the PM's wife had upped her fashion game after being upstaged by French President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni during an earlier visit from the French first couple, only to be trounced by Obama this week.

And Obama has also put paid to those Americans fretting that the First Lady's fondness for baring her biceps might be embarrassing when she met with the British queen in a sleeveless number disguised with an elegant black cardigan. The queen wore pink.

"Changing into an elegant black-and-white Isabel Toledo dress from springy J Crew pieces in London, First Lady Michelle Obama showcased her versatility and officially became one of the fab four of the political fashion world in the modern era-joining Jacqueline Kennedy, French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Princess Diana," enthused the Chicago Tribune.