Perhaps no political figure in history has said as much with her clothes as Melania Trump.
Whether conscious or not — she continued to pay the stylist she relied on during her time in the White House, Hervé Pierre Braillard, through her husband’s Save America PAC at least through the middle of last year — Melania speaks with her clothes, even when the messages aren’t quite clear.
So when she appeared Saturday evening for her first political event since her husband, Donald Trump, became the unofficial Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, it felt impossible to resist asking: What is she trying to say?
While the former president prepared for the first day of hearings in his Manhattan criminal trial, Melania hosted a closed-door fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago for the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBT advocacy group.
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Dressed in a black blazer with a wraparound belt and a pair of cigarette leg pants, she grinned, practically glowed, in an Instagram post by her co-host, Richard Grenell, a public relations consultant who served as ambassador to Germany during the Trump administration. Melania is a longtime friend of the group, which gave her its Spirit of Lincoln Award in 2021. She posted a rare message on her mostly dormant X account, along with an image of her at the event, calling for political unity “around the principles of liberty, justice, and patriotism.” Curiously, she stands at a remove from the microphone, posing beside it rather than speaking into it, suggesting that she remains more comfortable being looked at than being heard.
Was her ensemble a gesture of sobriety? A spirit of sleek unity? A cloud of somberness?
Most likely, she just wanted to look fantastic, and by that measure — she succeeded.
Inching back into the spotlight as the former president’s inevitable candidacy congeals, Melania has made the psychology behind her clothing choices more difficult to divine.
In recent appearances, she dresses more like a woman who enjoys a good afternoon at Neiman Marcus. On March 19, when Florida cast its primary votes, she accompanied her husband to the polls in a white shirtdress by Alexander McQueen featuring an enormous orchid.
Earlier this month, she attended a fundraiser for the campaign at Mar-a-Lago, wearing a purple floral jumpsuit by Valentino. Her McQueen dress was part of the finale collection of designer Sarah Burton, one of the rare female talents in fashion whose send-off show emphasized feminine beauty. And Valentino, under then-creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, emphasizes diversity and body positivity in its runway shows and campaigns. But those marketing gestures are probably of little interest to Melania; she is not attempting to conjure any of that messaging by wearing those brands.
Jill Biden is a practitioner of classical sartorial diplomacy. Though she resists conversation about her clothes, her choices are always thoughtful: Oscar de la Renta dresses are chosen because the brand’s designers are immigrants; a Gabriela Hearst dress is decorated with flowers from every U.S. state and territory; a coat and dress she wore to the inauguration champions the work of a young American designer.
Melania is not so traditional, though observers have long debated whether she plays these games. In her 2019 book, “Free, Melania,” former CNN correspondent Kate Bennett wrote that Melania probably scoffs at those who attempt deep readings of her Instagram posts: “To read into these glamour shots is an exercise in futility,” Bennett wrote. But she also acknowledged how savvily the former first lady wears her clothes: “I think she wanted [the pink pussy-bow blouse] to land in that gray area between Trump supporters thinking she’s on the side of her husband and anti-Trumpers thinking she’s sending them a silent signal acknowledging their rage.”
If anything, her clothes remain costume-y. On Saturday, she was dressed to get down to business. But every outfit she wears puts a pinprick in the delusion of global luxury — revealing as fiction the little myths that designers and CEOs tell themselves about the value behind what they do.
Melania is dressed as she wants to be dressed — to please the people who pay for the privilege to be around her, to raise money for her husband’s campaign (and mounting legal bills). Of course, those people just want her to be herself.
