Dressed for Life: First Ladies' and Red Dress Collection Exhibit Opens April 1 at the Hayes Presidential Center

One of the causes championed by former First Lady Laura Bush while in the White House was women’s heart health. She provided voice and star power to the National Institute of Health The Heart Truth ^® campaign's The Red Dress ^®fashion show in New York.

The Hayes Presidential Center picks up on that White House initiative with its newest exhibit Dressed for Life: First Ladies’ & Red Dress Collection.^® The exhibit opens April 1, 2015 and continues through January 4, 2016 and is made possible through title sponsorship from The Fremont Company . 

Nine red dresses worn by First Ladies are featured, as well as 10 dresses modeled by celebrities in past Red Dress Collection^® fashion shows. Included are dresses worn by First Ladies Nancy Reagan, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Caroline Harrison, Rosalynn Carter, Laura and Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Lucy Hayes. Celebrity dresses, made by top international designers, include those worn by Venus Williams, Heidi Klum, and Emmylou Harris.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Hayes Presidential also is actively promoting heart-health awareness for all ages and sexes through a series of special programming:

• Let’s Move is a monthly children’s exercise program that begins in April and continues through December. It is sponsored by Richard Binau Insurance & Financial Services and Ohio Mutual Insurance Group .

• Walkers’ & Wagging Tails' Club kicks-off in April and is sponsored by ProMedica Memorial Hospital . Membership is free and walkers (and their pets) are challenged to walk their way to health by logging 300 miles. Those achieving the goal receive free T-shirts.

• Former White House Chef John Moeller headlines a pair of fundraising events. On May 1 & 2, he prepares a lunch and dinner at the Catawba Island Club in Port Clinton. The limited seating events are fundraisers for the Hayes Presidential Center. click here to view an event flier. (For reservations, call 419-332-2081, ext. 226.)

• Heart Disease Doesn’t Care What You Wear features speakers discussing women’s health, as well as free blood pressure checks. Dates and topics will be announced later.

• The Kids Lunch Box Series also sponsored by ProMedica Memorial Hospital aims at getting the youngest Americans started on the road to health early in life. Children learn to make healthful lunches, while sampling foods that taste good and are good for their bodies.

• First Ladies' Man an evening with Andy Och, producer of C-SPAN's "First Ladies: Influence & Image" series. Andy shares his experiences traveling across the country visiting sites important to First Ladies past and present, and numerous facts and stories that did not make it into the series. Cost $10 per person.