Laura Smalls

Who's in the running towards becoming America's Next Inauguration Designer? We won't know for sure what Michelle Obama will wear to the inaugural balls until Monday (unless someone who doesn't value their job decides to spill the beans), but WWD's got the scoop on which designers have fielded sample requests from the White House. No one on the list is particularly surprising.

Laura Smalls catapulted out of relative obscurity onto the national scene last week when Michelle Obama wore not one, but two of her pieces to the DNC. Not bad for a rising designer!

We know it's New York Fashion Week, but we're starting to wonder where the fashion shows really were the past few days: here or in North Carolina? The FLOTUS looked absolutely stunning once again last night on the last day of the Democratic National Convention. While her husband took the podium, she wore a well-tailored burgundy floral-printed dress by up-and-coming African-American designer Laura Smalls with an Alexis Bittar flower pin on her lapel. Smalls is staging a small fashion week presentation on Tuesday and we bet her PR just got a lot more RSVPs.