Michelle Obama is showing off her fierce bangs on the new cover of Vogue magazine. And in the accompanying article, the first lady counters criticism that she and the president aren’t very social in D.C., noting that the “the stresses and the pressures” being the first family are such that they want to spent time with daughters Sasha and Malia.

“Our job is, first and foremost, to make sure our family is whole,” she says in the article by Jonathan Van Meter. “You know, we have small kids; they’re growing every day. But I think we were both pretty straightforward when we said, ‘Our No. 1 priority is making sure that our family is whole.’ “

President Obama adds that things might change when the girls, who are 14 and 11, are older: “As I joked at a press conference, now that they want less time with us, who knows? Maybe you’ll see us out in the clubs.”

As for the fashion details, Robin Givhan writes in The Washington Post:

Michelle Obama’s debut appearance on the Vogue cover in March 2009 was indeed an East Wing rite of passage going back at least to Mamie Eisenhower. Being photographed for the magazine is one of the few remaining bipartisan gestures. For that portrait, she sat curled on a sofa with her long, toned arms lightly wrapped one over the other in a protective gesture.

The April 2013 cover shows her in a more open, more assertive stance. She leans against a table and looks directly into the camera’s lens with her bare arms — still lean, perhaps a bit more toned — resting at her side. She’s wardrobed from her own closet in a Reed Krakoff sheath in cerulean blue with a flourish of purple at the neckline. She wears the same look in the photograph inside with the president, who’s dressed in a pinstriped shirt and a blue — but not matchy-matchy — tie.

In recent weeks, Michelle Obama announced the Best Picture winner at the Oscars and did the Dougie on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.