NEW YORK: She may be tall, slim and a former model, but incoming first lady Melania Trump faces a new kind of fashion police — designers refusing to dress her because of her husband’s politics.
She has posed for GQ, modeled in Paris and graced the cover of Vogue, yet what Melania wears to the inaugural balls on Friday night could be the most important sartorial decision of her life.
“It’s hard to find a great dress for this inauguration,” Donald Trump told The New York Times, trying to present the event as a society sell-out, though whether that is true remains to be seen.
From Mamie Eisenhower’s pink peau de soie gown to Michelle Obama’s white Jason Wu confection in 2009, inaugural gowns worn by America’s first ladies have wound up in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Melania has high heels to fill. Not only is she the only first lady to come from the fashion world, she succeeds one of the most stylish and beloved first ladies of all.
It remains unclear what path Melania will take. Years ago, she said she would like to be a “traditional” first lady like Jackie Kennedy — famed for her timeless elegance and love of French as well as American fashion.
But she comes into the role at a time when an unprecedented number of designers are saying she simply is not their style or urging each other not to dress her because of her husband’s insult-dishing, divisive campaign.
Sophie Theallet was the first.
“The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband’s presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by,” Theallet announced last November.
“Personally, I’d rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters,” Marc Jacobs told Women’s Wear Daily.
But top designers such as Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg and Tommy Hilfiger all said they would be honored to dress Melania.