EDITOR’S NOTE: Featuring the great, the dangerous and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is an everyday sequence devoted to unpacking essentially the most talked about outfit of the final seven days.
Melania Trump’s enigmatic fashion staple, the face-covering wide-brimmed hat, is again. And this one solid a good decrease, nearer shadow — rendering her expressions much more inscrutable — than any earlier than it.
The first lady struck a suitably formal determine on Wednesday because the Prince and Princess of Wales greeted her and President Trump off Marine One at Windsor Castle on their unprecedented second state visit to the UK. Dressed in darkish grey Dior, the previous mannequin appeared to cover beneath an umbrella-like, darkish plum hat from the off.
As she strolled by way of the fortress grounds beside Queen Camilla, the distinction between the 2 was hanging. While her host’s face appeared lit by daylight passing by way of the wafer-thin, upturned brim of her Philip Treacy hat, Melania’s was downturned and opaque, its edges producing an angular silhouette that solely added to the extreme impact of her military-style skirt swimsuit. In lieu of sensible motives (British Septembers don’t usually require solar safety) the millinery messaging was clear: “Don’t look at me.”
The first lady typically makes use of equipment, whether or not hats or outsized sun shades, as armor. At January’s presidential inauguration she paired her somber navy swimsuit with a boater so vast that (by design or default) it memorably prevented her husband from planting a kiss on her cheek. It felt like a pointed alternative on a day that, for her, kicked off 4 extra years of unwelcome media scrutiny.
Here too, on a visit already mild on public engagements and marred by protests in Windsor and London, the first lady appeared to reiterate the low profile she has stored throughout her husband’s second time period.
Yet, Melania additionally has a behavior of confounding fashion-watchers. Because if her daytime outfit was meant to deflect the world’s gaze, her dinner robe screamed for its consideration.
By then, in fact, Melania’s hat had come off — the one permissible headwear at a state banquet are the crowns and tiaras worn by senior royals. But past revealing her face for the first time that day, the first lady made an lively try to face out in a dandelion yellow Carolina Herrera robe.
State dinners are as formal as British social occasions go. And whereas the costume code for ladies is unwritten, and thus open to interpretation, Melania’s strapless outfit existed at its very fringes. The robe was long-sleeved and floor-length, sure, however the first lady was additionally one of many only a few attendees (her stepdaughter Tiffany Trump being one other) with shoulders on full present. Her conspicuous square-buckled, pastel pink belt may even have raised eyebrows.
In sum, the outfit was, as superstar stylist Marian Kwei politely put it to the BBC, “a little on the daring side.” Read into this what you’ll. The first lady is clearly much less involved with sartorial communication than lots of her predecessors. At instances, her style selections don’t appear to sign very a lot in any respect, as she eschews overt symbolism and depends on tried-and-true European luxurious labels (Dior often amongst them) relatively than up-and-coming designers. On different events, the messages have appeared so tone-deaf — such because the coat, emblazoned with the phrases “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” that she wore to go to an immigrant little one detention middle in Texas in 2018 (a garment her spokesperson later needed to make clear contained “no hidden message”) — that one can solely hope no consideration went into them.
Having stated that, Melania nonetheless performs the fundamentals of diplomatic dressing. Although thought-about a naked minimal, championing designers or labels out of your host nation is, as an example, all the time good kind. On Wednesday, the first lady nodded to British heritage by sporting a floor-length Burberry trench coat, collar upturned and paired with outsized Saint Laurent shades, to board Air Force One in Washington DC. She wore the identical look to disembarked at London Stansted Airport, the label’s signature examine sample often seen because the coat flicked up round her ft. Burberry might have been an apparent alternative, however the gesture won’t have gone unnoticed.