Melania Trump – and her clothes – are back in the spotlight

Whether consciously or not — she continued to pay the stylist she relied on during her time in the White House, Hervé Pierre Braillard, at least until mid-last year through her husband’s Save America PAC — Melania talks to her clothes, even if the messages are not completely clear.

So when she showed up Saturday night 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 the question: What is she trying to say?

As the former president prepared for the first day of hearings in his criminal trial in Manhattan, Melania hosted a closed-door fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago for the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBT advocacy group.

Dressed in a black blazer with a wrap-around belt and cigarette-leg pants, she grinned, almost glowing, in an Instagram post by her co-host, Richard Grenell, a public affairs consultant who served as ambassador to Germany during the Trump administration. . Melania is a longtime friend of the group, which earned her the 2021 Spirit of Lincoln Award. She posted a rare message to her mostly dormant X account, along with a photo of her at the event: calling for political unity “around the principles of freedom, justice and patriotism.” Curiously, she stands some distance from the microphone and poses next to it rather than speaking into it, suggesting that she is more comfortable being looked at than being heard.

Was her ensemble a gesture of sobriety? A spirit of strict unity? A cloud of gloom?

Most likely, she just wanted to look great, and that’s how she succeeded.

Melania’s return to the spotlight as the former president’s inevitable candidacy freezes has made it harder to understand the psychology behind her clothing choices.

In recent appearances, she dresses more like a woman having a good afternoon at Neiman Marcus. On March 19, when Florida’s primary election was underway, she accompanied her husband to the polls in a white Alexander McQueen shirt dress with a huge orchid on it.

In mid-April, she attended a campaign fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago wearing a purple floral jumpsuit from Valentino. Her McQueen dress was part of the final collection of designer Sarah Burton, one of fashion’s rare female talents whose farewell 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 consequence to Melania; she’s not trying to evoke any of that message by wearing those brands.

Jill Biden practices classic sartorial diplomacy. Although 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 championed the work of a young American designer.

Melania isn’t that traditional, although observers have long debated whether she plays these games. In her 2019 book “Free, Melania,” former CNN correspondent Kate Bennett wrote that Melania is likely mocking those who try to read her Instagram posts in depth: “Reading into these glamor shots is an exercise in futility,” Bennett wrote. But she also acknowledged how cleverly the former first lady wears her clothes: “I think she (the pink blouse with a bow) wanted to land in that gray area between Trump supporters who thought she was on her husband’s side and anti- Trumpers who thought she was on her husband’s side. by sending them a silent signal acknowledging their anger.

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In any case, her clothing remains costume-like. On Saturday she was dressed to go to work. But every outfit she wears puts a pinprick into the delusion of global luxury, revealing as fiction the little myths designers and CEOs tell themselves about the value behind what they do.

Melania is dressed the way she wants to be dressed – to please the people who pay for the privilege of being with her, to raise money for her husband’s campaign (and to rack up legal bills). Of course, those people just want her to be herself.