Michelle Obama as Vogue's cover star

Michelle Obama has ended a period of relative seclusion to grace the cover of Vogue magazine and detail her new life as “Mom-in-Chief”.

In an extensive and at times gushing interview, the First Lady talks about her young children’s schooling and her desire to open up the White House to a new generation of hip-hop-loving youngsters. Much of the interview centres on the Obamas’ two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. “I’m going to try to take them to school every morning as much as I can,” Mrs Obama says. The two girls attend Sidwell Friends, a Washington private school that costs more than $28,000 annually for each child. “But there’s also a measure of independence. And obviously there will be times I won’t be able to drop them off at all. I like to be a presence in my kids’ school. I want to know the teachers; I want to know the other parents.”

Although Vogue has photographed every First Lady since Lou Hoover in 1929 — except for Harry Truman’s wife, Bess — Mrs Obama is only the second to have graced the cover. The first was Hillary Clinton, in December 1998. Seventeen black women have appeared on the cover of American Vogue before Mrs Obama, including Naomi Campbell, Oprah Winfrey and Halle Berry. One black man has been given the honour: LeBron James, the basketball player. The cover photograph, and a series of portraits spread over eight pages inside the magazine, were taken by Annie Leibovitz at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, where the Obamas lived in the days before they moved into the White House on January 20. The First Lady, who was not paid by the magazine, appears wearing a magenta silk sheath dress by Jason Wu, the 26-year-old who designed her inauguration ballgown. “Do you see our new house?” Mrs Obama asks her Vogue interviewer, its editor-at-large André Leon Talley, as she looks out of her hotel bedroom window across Lafayette Square to the White House, where black-clad Secret Service agents stalk the roof. “They tell me they do that a lot,” Mrs Obama says.

Mrs Obama’s mother, Marion Robinson, has moved into the White House to help to look after Malia and Sasha. Of her daughter’s ascension to First Lady — the family grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in Chicago’s South Side — Mrs Robinson says that she feels bemused.

“I laugh now because I always taught Michelle to step out of her comfort zone in life. But I never thought she was going to step this far out of that zone.”

Mrs Obama, referring to the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, says: “We like to joke that the South Side of Chicago is our Kennebunkport. We learnt in our household that there was nothing you couldn’t talk about and that you found humour in even some of the toughest times. I want to bring that spirit of warmth, openness and stability to my task.”

Mrs Obama says that she sees the White House as a national classroom, and wants it to be far more open and inclusive to the general public. “We want to make sure that our young people remember and understand what classical music is, who some of the great American artists are. We want entertaining in the White House to feel like America, that we are reminded of all the many facets of our culture. The Latino community, the Asian-American community, the African-American community, hip-hop, spoken word — we want to bring the youth in, for them to hear their voices in this.”

Mrs Obama has been criticised for wearing a black cardigan over her Narciso Rodriguez dress on election night. “I’m not going to pretend that I don’t care about it,” she says. “But I also have to be very practical. Someone will always not like what you wear — people just have different tastes. Some will think that a sweater was horrible, [but] I was cold. I needed that sweater!”

Mrs Obama, who mostly dresses her children, and often herself, in off-the-peg clothes from mainstream stores such as J. Crew, adds: “I love clothes. First and foremost, I wear what I love. That’s what women have to focus on: what makes them happy and what makes them feel comfortable and beautiful. If I can have any impact, I want women to feel good about themselves and have fun with fashion.”