Former First Lady Michelle Obama may have wowed the country with her speech at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night, but it was her gold “vote” necklace that stole the show. Shortly after she gave a scathing condemnation of the current Trump administration and voiced her support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as the night wore on, her dainty accessory went viral.
Former first lady Michelle Obama wears necklace spelling out “VOTE” during her keynote speech on the first night of the #DemConvention. https://t.co/SERON8yUf1 pic.twitter.com/8m5NAwwaIA
— ABC News (@ABC) August 18, 2020
Urging Americans to “vote like we did in 2008 and 2012,” all eyes were on the necklace, a gold piece that spelled out the word “vote.” So many eyes were on it, in fact, that it almost immediately went viral. Google Trends even revealed on Twitter that the necklace was “the top trending search on all of US Google in the last hour of the event,” with people searching for “Michelle Obama necklace,” “vote necklace,” and “letter necklace.”
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Damn. I have now counted FIVE tweets in one quick scroll about Ms. Michelle Obama’s gold vote necklace. Shit’s bout to be
— Sierra “Arrest Breonna Taylor’s Murderers” Reed (@im_thehbic) August 18, 2020
1) sold out from the original
2) targeted to every woman by rando DTC companies
3) Forever 21, Zara, and H&M are already mass producing this
Across social media, people couldn’t stop talking about the necklace. One person tweeted that the former first lady’s “VOTE necklace is my new ~aspirational~ vibe for 2020.” Another person wrote, “Okay, can we all take a moment to appreciate Michelle Obama’s ‘Vote’ necklace?!” Most people, however, simply expressed the need to have that very same necklace among their own accessories, one person tweeting, “I need to wear it every day for the rest of my life.”
The necklace was a personalized piece from ByChari, created by designer Chari Cuthbert. Cuthbert spoke about the necklace with the Daily Beast after Tuesday night’s events, and she admitted that she was unaware that Obama would be wearing it for the DNC. She told the outlet that Obama’s stylist had called her several weeks prior to order a custom necklace with charms spelling out the word VOTE, though it wasn’t until Monday afternoon that she learned of when Obama was planning to wear it.
“There was a snippet from her DNC speech on CNN and my mom sent it to me. I couldn’t believe it. Out of respect, I didn’t post it or anything, because I didn’t want to take advantage,” Cuthbert said, adding that “it was surreal” and she “sat at my desk and cried” at the overwhelming response the necklace received.
Cuthbert said that in the hour after Obama’s speech, her company had seen “a significant uptick in sales.” She explained that she had designed a VOTE necklace and shared it to the company’s Instagram page, though she is unsure if that is where Obama’s stylist saw it.
