Melania Trump may be sending secret messages via her choice to wear clothes from British design houses, says Express writer Jess Sheldon. However, what that message may be, and its intended audience, remains unclear.
The first lady kept a low profile during the government shutdown but has since been seen on-camera, and often, she’s been spotted wearing British brands. For example, at the State of the Union address, Mrs. Trump wore a jacket from the century-and-a-half-old English design house Burberry, valued at approximately $1919. You can find a similar Burberry jacket on Amazon , with the same black color but lacking the vertical column of buttons that appeared on Melania’s garment, for $1,370. She also wore only one glove during her husband’s annual address to Congress, although the significance of that choice, if indeed there is any, remains unclear.
Similarly, two days later Mrs. Trump made a public appearance, this time wearing a denim jacket. This one was also from a British design house; specifically, it’s a Victoria Beckham jacket worth approximately $547.
So is Melania making a statement by wearing British brands? Perhaps it has something to do with the ongoing Brexit controversy, although what Melania thinks about Brexit is anyone’s guess. She’s said nothing about it so far, although it bears noting that her husband, Donald, supports Great Britain leaving the European Union.
“Melania Trump” reveals the hidden messages in her wardrobe to Stephen Colbert https://t.co/nFieYoshki
— TIME (@TIME) June 28, 2018
Mrs. Trump’s stylist, Hervé Pierre, rejects any notion that his client is trying to make a statement with her choices.
“As long as I find the right outfit, the designer is almost irrelevant. The designer… could have been anybody else. It has nothing to do with England or Brexit.”
However, fashion expert Dominique St. John believes that Melania has made political statements with her fashion choices before, although she’s not convinced she’s doing so now.
“It is unclear whether Melania is making a political statement on this occasion.”
You’ll note that St. John said the words “on this occasion.” That’s because the first lady has, in the past, been accused of making a political statement with her fashion choices. Perhaps most notably, in June 2018, Melania made a trip to a juvenile detention facility in Texas, where migrant children, who had crossed the border from Mexico illegally, were being kept detained, separated from their parents. That day, Mrs. Trump famously wore a Zara jacket with the words “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?”
The message was taken to be a dig at the controversy of separating migrant children from their parents, not-so-subtly saying that she, well, doesn’t care. However, as CNN reported months later, Mrs. Trump, after first insisting there was no hidden message, later said that it was a dig at the “fake news media.”
