Jason Wu is getting yet another boost from Michelle Obama – in the first lady’s cover shot for Vogue’s March issue, she appears in a sleeveless, magenta silk dress by the designer who also created the evening gown she wore to the inaugural balls.

Mrs. Obama, who is only the second first lady to appear on the cover of Vogue (the first being Hillary Clinton in December, 1998), worked with the magazine on picking pieces from her own wardrobe to wear for the shoot, says Vogue spokesman Patrick O’Connell . “We thought the first lady should wear what she felt was appropriate,” he says. “And we couldn’t be happier with her choices.” Annie Leibovitz shot the pictures in early January at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C.

For the inside pages, Mrs. Obama appears in ensembles by Narciso Rodriguez and J.Crew, labels that she’s also worn during important events. (She chose a red and black Narciso Rodriguez cocktail dress for election night and wore J.Crew to an inauguration event.)

In the magazine, which hits newsstands Tuesday, Mrs. Obama addresses the fashion fishbowl that she now lives in, given that blogs and media are tracking every sartorial decision she makes. “I’m not going to pretend that I don’t care about it,” she said to Vogue, according to the AP. “But I also have to be very practical. In the end, someone will always not like what you wear — people just have different tastes.”

Mr. O’Connell says the magazine has a “long-standing tradition of photographing first ladies” that dates back to 1929, when Lou Hoover, the wife of president Herbert Hoover, appeared in its glossy pages. “But this also was a historic election,” he says. “This was something we were very interested in doing.”

– Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan