WASHINGTON — In the end, she checked every box.
Elegant, unexpected dress? Check. Unknown designer elevated to overnight sensation? Check. New York brand? Check. Implicit message about cooperation and embracing the melting pot? Check.
When Melania Trump took the stage with her husband, President Trump, on Friday night for the inaugural balls, she demonstrated that, while she may have been out of the spotlight since the election, she hasn’t been sticking her head in the sand. She has been closely studying the vernacular of first lady dress.
In an architectural off-the-shoulder white crepe column with a thin burgundy ribbon as a belt, a high slit and a gazar wave curving from sleeve to hip and then down the skirt, she looked — especially when compared with the younger generation of Trump women, most of whom opted for gold-tinged sparkling princess gowns — understated and adult. Not remotely mired in the 1980s, though her husband’s look and rhetoric may be.
And despite rampant speculation about the designer behind the dress, she cannily managed to surprise the entire fashion world.
The gown was, according to a statement from her office, a “collaboration” between Mrs. Trump and the designer Hervé Pierre, a Frenchman who moved to New York in the early 1990s and eventually became creative director of Carolina Herrera, where he and Mrs. Trump met and where he worked on clothes for Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, though largely behind the scenes. He left that post last February. This is his first major dress under his own name (he does not yet have a full-fledged collection in that context).
It will eventually join the exhibit of first ladies gowns at the Smithsonian stretching back to Helen Taft in 1909.
Though rumors had surfaced earlier in the week that Mrs. Trump was working with Chanel’s creative director Karl Lagerfeld on her gown, in the end she used the opportunity — and indeed, her entire inaugural wardrobe — to do what her husband, standing on the steps of the Capitol building, said they would do: “follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American.”
After over 20 years in this country, Mr. Pierre counts.
Indeed, with one notable exception — Kellyanne Conway’s red-white-and-blue military-inspired coat at the swearing-in, which looked like she might have borrowed it off a toy soldier (it was her “Trump revolution wear” she told reporters) but in fact turned out to be a $3,600 design from the Italian brand Gucci — the inaugural weekend overall was a series of America First fashion moments, literally and metaphorically. And not just when it came to the women.
If it looked like something of a first lady costume, and it did, it also suggested that Mrs. Trump had studied up and was prepared to assume the starring role she played later in the evening. Just as Ivanka Trump’s trouser suit, which was designed by Fernando Garcia, one half of the new young creative duo at Oscar de la Renta, seemed a sign of the unofficial role she has often suggested she will pursue: women’s advocate.
White pantsuits, after all, became famous over the summer when Hillary Clinton wore one, also by Ralph Lauren, to accept the Democratic nomination for president, at least in part in acknowledgment of the suffragists, who chose white as one of their signature colors. Later, the white outfits were adopted as a uniform of sorts by pro-Clinton women as they went to the polls.
It was thus a fairly pointed (and, to some, poignant) moment when Mrs. Clinton appeared in a final white Ralph Lauren pantsuit to accompany her husband to the inauguration — a suit that had been made as part of her campaign collaboration with Mr. Lauren, but never worn. And it was probably not by chance that Ms. Trump selected a similar look.
The politics of clothing may be subtle, and may strike some as frivolous, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a requisite part of the pageantry that surrounds the presidency — especially on a day with more photo opportunities than speeches. They paint a picture of the family that now represents the country, of their ambitions, goals and values, at a moment when the world is watching. This time, the brush strokes swirled: not with accessibility, but with aspiration, and nationalism. A case of the emperor’s new clothes, or a harbinger of things to come? We’ll have to keep looking to find out. – New York Times
I know my memory is not as good as newspaper print but the author here said white became the rage when Hillary Clinton wore it to make her acceptance speech. I never knew Hillary Clinton to be a fashion plate but if my memory serves me right, white became a rage when weeks before Melania Trump wore white to make her speech to the RNC. Her speech, which was largely mocked and accused of having been lifted from M Obama’s speech, was in fact said by Moses in the Book of Numbers, in the book of Matthew, by Joseph Hall in 1608 and many others but as well by John D Rockefeller, by Saul Alinsky a part of a speech.
As you can see that part which Melania was accused of lifting was lifted by Michelle long before Melania came to politics. My grandparents would quote to me about your word is your bond so it could have been lifted from something I wrote when running for my junior high student council presidency in 1979.
Alas, they accused her of taking it from Michelle. Michelle, after all, is the only person who ever said that (not) and wearing white by Hillary as she is the world’s top fashion plate, (not) is just as stupid as saying that Michelle invented that part of a man’s word is his bond.
I do so hold the media in low regard because they rarely get facts right when it comes to their favorite whipping boy, the GOP or members of the party.