The Obamas are in the process of shaping their post-White House legacy, which beyond taking the occasional vacation will include putting on a public face. | Getty In age of Trump, Obama is the new tabloid darling The gossip pages and fashion blogs have become obsessed with every move from the former president and his wife.

Donald Trump might be the original tabloid president, but while he works long hours in Washington making phone calls from the Oval Office and wreaking havoc on Twitter, the gossip pages and fashion blogs are spilling a lot of ink chronicling his predecessor.

In early February, after the former president was spotted wearing his hat backward while on a post-inauguration trip to the Virgin Islands, TMZ declared that Barack and Michelle Obama were on “permanent vacation.”


Bustle, a women’s blog, dubbed the former first couple’s vacation look “Super Chill Obama and Michelle” and told its probably-liberal readers, “Vacation Obama Is Exactly What You Need To See In This Dark Time.”

TMZ, again : “Prez Obama Hat to the Back, Still On Island Time.”

Since they’ve returned from vacation, the Obamas have continued to make headlines — but despite the accusations of wiretapping, they’re mostly about what he wore to coffee or where she went for lunch.

Buoyed by their celebrity, the Obamas still attract attention when they’re spotted on the street. But freed from the constraints of the office, their fans are now running into them on vacation, at lunch or outside SoulCycle . And those sightings, captured via iPhone camera and shared on social media, have become fodder for regular coverage in traditional gossip columns, on friendly left-leaning blogs, and in fashion magazines eager to assess the president’s post-White House wardrobe.

“Especially in New York, the second that he’s anywhere, people are tweeting and Instagramming and just fanning out about it,” said Mara Siegler, a reporter for Page Six, the New York Post’s famous gossip section. “He was at Upland, and it was just everywhere immediately.”

Take one day in late February, when the former president exited a building on Fifth Avenue in New York with a coffee cup in hand. Dozens of people crowded around him outside, shouting his name and capturing his walk to the car on video that quickly made the rounds on social media.

From there, the appearance graced the gossip pages. “Barack Obama: Crowd-Pleaser in Big Apple,” said TMZ.

When the former president and first lady were spotted joining Bono for lunch at Upland, the upscale Park Avenue restaurant, there was also something of a stir . And there, as is the case elsewhere, the Obamas’ fashion choices were of particular interest to the media: The Daily Mail reported that Michelle was carrying an Alexander Wang leather crossbody bag priced at $995.

They also caused a minor media sensation again in early March, almost entirely because the former president was sporting a slim leather jacket that the fashion world deemed uncharacteristically stylish.

The event prompted newsy headlines such as “Former President Barack Obama rocks cool new leather jacket,” in the New York Daily News , and “Barack Obama got a leather jacket because he is a fashion dad now,” in Mashable .

Praise of Michelle’s wardrobe is not new — she’s long been hailed as a style icon — but the blogosphere seems pleased that the former president’s notorious “dad jeans” phase appears to be behind him (“I’m a little frumpy,” he once admitted ).

“The leather jacket marks a new, more relaxed phase in Obama’s style evolution (as do the new jeans),” Vanity Fair nodded approvingly . “He looks, for lack of a better description, pretty cool.”

“Given that Obama has had his share of style sins in the past (most famously his mom jeans), it’s great to see that he’s beginning to lock down his off-duty look,” Esquire agreed in its review of the leather-jacket debut (headline: “Obama’s Leather Jacket Proves His Most Stylish Days Are Yet to Come”).

Michelle, of course, “looked chic as always.”

Helena Andrews, a co-author of The Reliable Source, The Washington Post’s D.C. gossip column, said a new side of the image-conscious first couple is on display, even if it’s probably “still calculated, in a way that they are very particular about what they do and where they’re seen.” And that new side of them is interesting to people.

“We can see the president windsurfing , something that he most likely could not have ever even attempted while he was the president,” Andrews said. “We can see Barack Obama doing that. We can see former First Lady Michelle Obama in jean shorts and pigtails on the beach.”

“Those aren’t images that the public would have gotten to see when they were in the White House, just because of the office,” she added. “But now that they don’t live there, we can see a different side of them.”

The Obamas, sure enough, are in the process of shaping their post-White House legacy, which beyond taking the occasional vacation will include putting on a public face. (So far, they’ve taken up some traditional causes, such as setting up a nonprofit foundation and presidential library and writing memoirs; in the age of Trump, the former president also plans to stay involved in politics, through organizing and redistricting efforts as well as occasionally speaking out about his successor.)

The eldest Obama daughter, too, has been the focus of tabloid fascination since she moved to New York this winter to intern for the film producer Harvey Weinstein over her gap year between high school and college.

When Malia showed up for her first day of work in February in casual wear, New York’s fashion bloggers and the wider media took note (The Huffington Post announced that “Malia Obama Looks Awesome In Mom Jeans,” while Vogue suggested that she was channeling Rihanna with her “perfectly weather-worn pair”; Slate was more ambivalent , musing that the former first daughter “seems to have ascended to a fashion plane not comprehensible to mere mortals”).

“Malia Obama spent her first two weeks outside the White House living the life that every cool teen dreams of,” The Cut, a women’s blog run by New York Magazine, added after she was spotted at a recent “Girls” season premiere party.

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“Sighting Malia in the wild: One of the few things New Yorkers in 2017 have to look forward to,” the blog sighed.

Siegler, who’s written up tips on Malia’s various comings and goings at Sundance and around New York in Page Six, notes that it’s easy to spot the former first daughter in public since she travels with a Secret Service detail in tow. That, and she’s tall.

“She’s going to movie premieres, she’s going to Aspen, so I think it’s just fun to see what she’s up to,” Siegler said. “I think people really like Malia, and they want to see who she is and who she’s becoming.”

The same goes for her parents, meaning the Obama-in-the-wild sightings will probably keep on coming.

“Obviously, in New York, most people voted for Hillary,” Siegler said. “People love the Obamas here, and I think it’s just exciting to see them out. They’re a great looking family. People miss having them in the White House.”

“It would be more exciting to see Barack Obama,” she added, “than it would be to see Brad Pitt.”