Melania Trump, stop copying other First Ladies and forge your own style
Melania Trump has done it again — plagiarized a former First Lady, that is.
First she lifted lines from Michelle Obama’s speech. Now photos and memes have surfaced that the Ralph Lauren Collection powder-blue skirt suit she wore to husband Donald Trump’s inauguration was an exact replica of a pink cowl-neck suit Jackie Kennedy wore at a fashion pictorial. (#America First, Originality Second.)
Though it’s unclear who exactly designed the original Kennedy suit, Oleg Cassini was Jackie’s go-to designer, and the pink suit bears many of his hallmarks.
Vogue and other style watchers noted that Melania’s custom outfit — paired with matchy-matchy gloves, clutch and stilettos — channeled the elegance of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy during John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration.
Little did they know that the design was ripped off from one Jackie suit and the color from another.
Though she styled herself minus Jackie’s trademark pillbox hat, Melania seems to like taking pages from other First Ladies’ playbooks. While both Jackie Kennedy and Michelle Obama stepped into the role of First Fashion Plate as if they were born to it, and made icons of designers like Cassini, Cristobal Balenciaga, or in Obama’s case helped launch the careers of lesser-known designers like Phillip Lim and Derek Lam, Melania clearly needs a FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States) guidebook and role model.
Dressing FLOTUS is considered a very big deal among American designers, and, although some were reluctant or downright unwilling to design for the incoming First Lady, like Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs (more on that later), Melania elected to go with Ralph Lauren, who happens to be Hillary Clinton’s go-to designer.
But who could blame her? Born and raised in Slovenia (part of the former Yugoslavia), Melania is the first immigrant and second foreign-born woman to become First Lady. The playbook for Slovenian model turned business magnate’s wife turned First Lady hasn’t been written… yet.
The statuesque Melania, who towers at 5’11” like Michelle Obama, started modeling at five and doing commercials at 16. At 18 she signed with a Milan modeling agency, and worked in Milan and Paris before moving to New York City. She met The Donald at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998, when he was separated but still married to second wife Marla Maples.
Trump, no stranger to Eastern Bloc mannequins (first wife Ivana was a Czech-born model) or canoodling while married — asked for her phone number.
Legend has it that Melania, aware of his playboy reputation, initially refused to give it to him, but the Donald persisted, obviously prevailed and they started a relationship. Two years later, under Trump Model Management, she posed in a bikini for the 2000 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
She posed in a lot less, it turns out, when nude photos of Melania surfaced on the Internet. Three years before meeting Trump she had done an erotic shoot for a French men’s magazine, and photos show her lying naked in bed with another female model, and exposing her stellar physical assets with just one hand for cover. As has always been Trump’s MO, her husband was quick to go on the defense, saying, “In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common.”
When Donald and Melania got married in 2005, she walked down the aisle in a $200,000 Christian Dior dress by John Galliano that took 550 hours to make — studded as it was with 1,500 crystals. Featuring a 16-foot veil and 13-foot train, the gown was reportedly so difficult to walk in that Melania changed into a comfier Vera Wang dress for the after-party, flashing a 12-carat, emerald-cut Graff diamond ring worth 1.5 million British pounds.
Style-wise Melania compares favorably to Trump’s two ex-wives. Ivana, who was the Donald’s arm candy in the ’80s, had no qualms about wearing ostentatious jewelry and flaunting a style similar to the women characters on Dynasty. Her famous blonde beehive was partly the inspiration for the character Patsy Stone on the TV series Absolutely Fabulous. She dumped the Donald when she found out he was having an affair with American actress Marla Maples.
The style of wife No. 2 Maples, who once won Miss Hawaiian Tropic, is decidedly more beauty queen. Fond of frocks that wouldn’t look out of place on either prom night or a beauty pageant, Maples sported a sleeker, more flattering look during her wedding to Trump in a Carolina Herrera gown.
Melania, who coincidentally co-designed her inauguration ball gown with Carolina Herrera’s former creative director Hervé Pierre, is less flashy than Ivana (Melania’s signature accessories are her diamond stud earrings and coordinating engagement ring), and more modern than Marla. Before Trump entered the presidential race his wife’s fashion style could best be described as red-carpet glamorous and sexy. She favored body-con column dresses, usually beaded and strapless — all the better to show off her curves and ample cleavage.
When Trump started his campaign for president, Melania’s wardrobe shifted accordingly, towards the conservative, covered-up look preferred by politicians’ wives. Her necklines got higher, her sleeves longer, her fabrics thicker. She became the poster girl for “shoulder-robing,” like when she slung a Balmain coat over a Michael Kors dress and wore it hanging from her shoulders like a cape.
She’s also a fan of the pussy-bow, so called because the look features a ribbon tied at the neck like the bow collars given to cats in the 19th century. She wore Ralph Lauren’s black pussy-bow jumpsuit to Trump’s last debate and an asymmetric white version of the look on election night. The hot-pink pussy-bow top she wore to the second TV debate made headlines because it came two days after Trump’s explosive Access Hollywood video; while the Gucci blouse was undeniably chic, style watchers also speculated about whether she wore a pussy bow as a statement about her husband’s bragging about grabbing women by the crotch. It later turned out Melania wasn’t that calculating or ironic: she claimed she never intended to send such a subliminal message.
Thanks to her husband’s “deplorable” and divisive campaign, Melania has been deemed guilty by association. As a protest against the incoming administration, designer Sophie Theallet, who often dressed Michelle Obama, issued an open letter urging other designers not to dress Melania: “The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband’s presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by,” Theallet wrote.
Tom Ford, who voted for Hillary Clinton, said he had been asked to dress Melania years ago but had declined: “She’s not necessarily my image,” he said, adding that his clothes are “too expensive” for a first lady to wear: “I think the first lady has to relate to anybody.”
Marc Jacobs also refused: “I have no interest whatsoever in dressing Melania Trump,” he told Women’s Wear Daily. “I’d rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by (Donald) Trump and his supporters.”
A number of designers, many of whom were only too happy to dress Michelle Obama, followed suit, like Phillip Lim (“We do not have a current relationship with Mrs. Trump and I don’t foresee a relationship developing under the Trump administration”), Derek Lam (“I would rather concentrate my energies on efforts towards a more just, honorable and a mutually respectful world”), Christian Siriano (“For someone like myself, a young gay fashion designer, I can’t support a campaign where I might not have the same rights”), Kenzo designer Humberto Leon (“No one should, and if she buys your clothes, tell people you don’t support it”), as well as Rebecca Minkoff and Naeem Khan, all spoke out against dressing Melania, citing conflicting values with the Trump administration.
And yet a significant number are pro-Melania, or maybe pro-FLOTUS would be more accurate. Ralph Lauren, obviously, as well as Calvin Klein (“Of course I would”), Diane Von Furstenberg (“Melania deserves the respect of any first lady before her”), Tommy Hilfiger (“You’re not going to get much more beautiful than Ivanka or Melania”), Dolce & Gabbana (Stefano Gabbana called Melania a #DGwoman on Instagram), Carolina Herrera (“I think that in two or three months, [designers will] reach out, because it’s fashion. You’ll see everyone dressing Melania. She’s representing the United States”), Rag & Bone (“It would be hypocritical to say no to dressing a Trump”), and Thom Browne (“Out of respect for the position of the first lady of our United States, I would be honored”).
If Melania ever wants to graduate from style curiosity to style icon, she should stop copying other First Ladies and forge her own identity, blaze her own path. Cultivate Hervé Pierre as Jackie Kennedy cultivated Oleg Cassini. Reach out to the designers willing to work with her, and show those unwilling that she stands for values more admirable than what Trump’s administration currently stands for.
Melania speaks six languages, so there’s obviously a brain under that pretty hairdo. She shouldn’t retreat and defer her First Lady duties in favor of First Daughter Ivanka who, with her eponymous apparel and accessories label, is already emerging as the stronger personality and a style setter in her own right.
Claim your status as FLOTUS, Melania. Own it before it’s too late.
* * *
Follow me on Facebook (Therese Jamora-Garceau), Twitter @tjgarceau and Instagram @tj108_drummergirl.
