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The story behind Michelle Obama's state dinner dress makes it even more stunning.

For the very last time, President Obama and the first lady hosted a state dinner in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 18, 2016.

Photo by Shawn Thew - pool/Getty Images.

They graciously welcomed Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his wife, Agnese Landini, to the White House with open arms.

Photo by Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images.

And the two power couples showed the world why diplomacy is certainly the most fashionable way to go about foreign policy, that's for sure.

Photo by Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images.

Unsurprisingly, however, it was FLOTUS' dress that really got people talking.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Because, yes, it was downright stunning.

Photo by Shawn Thew/Getty Images.

But the story behind why the first lady chose to wear it makes it an even more beautiful look.

The dress by Donatella Versace — who famously rescued her brother's company and turned it into a thriving Italian brand amid doubts she'd be able to do so — was a nod to the visiting prime minister and his wife. But Michelle Obama's choice to wear the rose gold shimmering waterfall of a gown had an even more underlying feminist message behind it, according to The New York Times.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Michelle Obama's dress was made of chainmail — metal armor, essentially. And that speaks volumes about the type of message she wanted to send.

The gown was symbolic of female strength — a testament to the resiliency of a woman willing to fight for her beliefs and protect herself from bullies that might come along the way.

"When they go low, we go high," the first lady said on stage at the Democratic National Convention this past summer.

Her dress from Tuesday night summed that message up quite nicely.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

The first lady rocked the Versace gown in the wake of what's being called "the most powerful speech of the 2016 campaign" — an address she gave to voters in New Hampshire about the dire need to respect girls and women.

“I can’t stop thinking about this," she said during her speech, citing Donald Trump's discussion of sexual assault caught on tape. "It has shaken to me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted.”

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

"I have to tell you that I listen to all of this and I feel it so personally, and I’m sure that many of you do too, particularly the women," the first lady said. "The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman."

“I know it’s a campaign, but this isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. It’s about right and wrong,” she concluded. “And we simply cannot endure this, or expose our children to this any longer — not for another minute, and let alone for four years. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say enough is enough."

Photo by Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images.

Like other first ladies before her, Michelle Obama often wears gowns that send a message above and beyond aesthetics.

Her royal blue dress at the Democratic National Convention, for example, was designed by Christian Siriano, an artist recognized for body positivity and inclusiveness within the fashion industry. Its sentiments fell in line with her powerful speech illustrating the value of national togetherness.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

In 2009, when she wore a white gown by designer Jason Wu to the president's Inaugural Ball, it was chosen as a show of hope and refreshed optimism — turning the page, in a sense, as the country struggled to climb out of the Great Recession.

Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.

Michelle Obama's last state dinner is a tough pill to swallow for the many Americans who saw her as so much more than your standard first lady.

Much like her dress for this last state dinner, Obama's time in the White House represents what many of us aspire to be: strong, hopeful, and, even in the face of the most difficult of circumstances, having the ability to stay true to yourself.

Writing for The New York Times magazine, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie perfectly explained how the first lady's grit and resolve in the face of opposition shaped her into nothing short of an icon:

"The insults, those barefaced and those adorned as jokes, the acidic scrutiny, the manufactured scandals, the base questioning of legitimacy, the tone of disrespect, so ubiquitous, so casual. She had faced them, and sometimes she hurt and sometimes she blinked, but throughout, she remained herself."

Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images.

So, yeah. After eight years of being the first lady, chain mail was the perfect choice.

"Project Runway" mentor Tim Gunn took his fashion industry colleagues to task for failing American women in a lacerating op-ed for the Washington Post on Friday.

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"I love the American fashion industry," Gunn wrote in the column. "But it has a lot of problems" — not the least of which is the dismissive attitude toward women deemed "plus-size," nearly 2/3 of all women in America.

"It’s a puzzling conundrum. The average American woman now wears between a size 16 and a size 18, according to new research from Washington State University. There are 100 million plus-size women in America, and, for the past three years, they have increased their spending on clothes faster than their straight-size counterparts. There is money to be made here ($20.4 billion, up 17 percent from 2013). But many designers — dripping with disdain, lacking imagination or simply too cowardly to take a risk — still refuse to make clothes for them."

The timing of Gunn's column — published to coincide with the first day of New York City's Fashion Week — appears calibrated to capture the attention of his fellow industry professionals, who the TV personality charges with disinterest in — or hostility toward — women with larger bodies.

"I’ve spoken to many designers and merchandisers about this. The overwhelming response is, 'I’m not interested in her.' Why? 'I don’t want her wearing my clothes.' Why? 'She won’t look the way that I want her to look.' They say the plus-size woman is complicated, different and difficult, that no two size 16s are alike. Some haven’t bothered to hide their contempt. 'No one wants to see curvy women' on the runway, Karl Lagerfeld, head designer of Chanel, said in 2009. Plenty of mass retailers are no more enlightened: Under the tenure of chief executive Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie & Fitch sold nothing larger than a size 10, with Jeffries explaining that 'we go after the attractive, all-American kid.'"

Gunn even called out his own TV show, admitting that "Project Runway" has "not been a leader on this issue."

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images.

Indeed, contestants on the series routinely complain about having to design for women who aren't professional models, and they have, on occasion, belittled their clients for not conforming to their preferred body type.

The problem with sizing goes well beyond a few persnickety fashion designers.

Women's sizes can be vague and misleading — often by design. Early attempts to create a standard sizing chart faltered as researchers discovered that real-life women's bodies had a strange habit of defying standardization.

That, coupled with unforced errors like excluding non-white women from surveys, unrepresentative sampling, and the proliferation of "vanity sizing" — the practice, common among retailers, of marking a garment a size or several lower than its actual dimensions — can make shopping for the right piece of clothing a daunting experience. Not to mention that many outlets make their extended or plus-size clothing only available online, where trying things on involves waiting four-six business days and a whole lot of luck.

But there's good news! It's actually not impossible to design clothes for women of all body types, and some designers are starting to get it.

Designer Christian Siriano, who got his start on "Project Runway," recently created a line for Lane Bryant and has made it a point to work with celebrities of a variety of sizes, most recently "Ghostbusters" star Leslie Jones who, initially, couldn't find a designer to dress her.

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This season's "Runway" winner — Ashley Nell Tipton — secured her victory with a show featuring all plus-size models. While Gunn had some harsh words for her designs in the op-ed, dismissing her win as "tokenism" — her new J.C. Penney line has been embraced by women who have long sought plus-size clothes made by an actual plus-size designer.

In 2014, a group of designers and clothing retailers told Refinery29 that, while plus-sizes are often associated with higher cost of manufacturing, a lack of fashion-forward choices might be partly to blame for low sell-through rates.

Hopefully, Gunn's op-ed can serve as a wake-up call for the rest of the industry.

Photo by Frazier Harrison/Getty Images.

If anyone can convince more fashion designers to "make it work" for the majority of American women, it just might be this guy.

Fashion student Angela Luna was just two weeks into her senior year of college when she decided to scrap her thesis project and her post-graduation plans.

A fashion design student at Parsons School of Design, Luna had always been interested in evening wear, and her talent for couture helped her land a job at Abercrombie & Fitch right after she graduated.

She had a change of heart when she saw the news about the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis.

Suddenly, in the grand scheme of things, those coveted designer contracts to make $4,000 Prada pants didn't seem so important to Luna anymore. Instead, she wanted to help the millions of people who were displaced and struggling to survive in their transient states.

Angela Luna, photo by Lorenzo Costa. Used with permission.

Luna started sketching ideas for a line of fashionable-but-functional outerwear specifically designed to address the issues refugees were facing every day.

According to the New School's student paper, Luna's teachers and mentors were skeptical, even shocked, when she proposed the idea to them. Was her new vogue just a way to profit off a tragedy? Why was she throwing away the industry work she'd already secured?

Angela, right, with designer Donna Karan. Photo by Parsons School of Design/Fiona Dieffenbacher. Used with permission.

But Luna's passion project eventually won over her critics.

"It is a statement of current events: not making a trend out of tragedy, but channeling major global issues into fashion," she explained in her artist statement about the project. "It is as much a political statement as a fashion statement. Fashion is often considered superfluous and detached from global concerns, and now is the time to create change."

The result of her work? Design for a Difference, a fashion brand that's "functional and designed to serve a particular purpose" while also "stylish enough to be worn on the streets of Manhattan."

"Each jacket responds to an issue that a refugee faces on a daily basis," Luna said in an interview with WBUR.

The inaugural collection, "Crossing the Boundary," includes several weather-resistant cloaks that can convert into tents for one or two people: