The veep glanced over her left shoulder to spy Obama and Trum seemingly getting along in the row behind her, before whipping back around and staring straight ahead.

From Eleanor Roosevelt to Jill Biden, first ladies have often made statements through what they wore on Inauguration Day and to the inaugural balls.

Jill Biden is still hurt by Nancy Pelosi’s vote of no confidence in her husband’s reelection. “I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships,” the first lady said in an interview with The Washington Post published Wednesday. “It’s been on my mind a lot lately, and we were friends for 50 years,” she said of Pelosi. “It was disappointing.”

Former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will come together again next week for the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, but one spouse, Michelle Obama, is sitting this one out.

The U.S. has a long tradition of defeated presidential candidates sharing the inauguration stage with the people who defeated them, projecting to the world the orderly transfer of power. It’s a practice that Vice President Kamala Harris will resume on Jan. 20 after an eight-year hiatus.

2001: Al Gore and George W ... Vice President Mike Pence looks on as incoming President Joe Biden embraces first lady Jill Biden, his son Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley Biden after he was ...

At close: January 16 at 11:54:38 AM GMT+11

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As President Joe Biden was making one final lap around town this week, delivering farewell speeches to his diplomatic corps, military leaders and the nation at large, his appearances belied a grim reality: This is not how he’d hoped his half-century career in Washington would end.

And not just American designers but, in Mr. Biden’s case, Ralph Lauren, a man who built his entire identity on the American dream. For her part, Jill Biden chose labels designed by women, like Markarian and Gabriela Hearst in New York.

The incoming first lady Melania Trump has many asking, “What will Melania wear?” The interest in first ladies inaugural fashion has even puzzled some first ladies and their next of kin. In 1912 when the Smithsonian was piecing together a centennial spanning exhibition of fashion that was a precursor to its First Ladies collection,

Former first lady Michelle Obama will skip the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, and no reason has yet been provided for her absence. This is the second time in two weeks that she will not attend a gathering of former U.S. leaders and their spouses.