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Inauguration

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Inauguration

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Michelle Obama's inauguration dress by Cuban designer Isabel Toledo certainly turned heads. Students from Boston's School of Design shared with Advocate.com their original looks for the first lady.

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By now the million dollar question has been answered. Despite names like Oscar de la Renta and Narciso Rodriguez being bandied about, Obama went with relatively unknown Cuban designer Isabel Toledo to create her inauguration day dress.

Instead of commissioning a handful of big names to submit their dream Obama dress, Advocate.com asked a group of students at the Boston School of Design to share the culmination of a months-long assignment to design and create a dress for America's highest-ranking fashion icon. Each student was asked in the fall, before the election, to sketch the perfect inauguration ball gown for both Cindy McCain and Obama. After Barack won the election in November, each student was handed $200 to conjure up their Michelle-inspired creation.

What follows are a few of our favorites from the class.

Above: Dress sketch by Victoria Dominguez. See the following pages for more.

Above: Dress sketch by Kelly Higgins. See the following page for more.

The Advocates with Sonia BaghdadyOut / Advocate Magazine - Jonathan Groff & Wayne Brady

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