During the eight months of Trump’s presidency, sightings of America’s First Lady have been few and far between.
She has rationed her state appearances to just 22, including the White House‘s traditional Easter Egg roll and the funeral of Pope Francis – presumably occasions when her presence was deemed non-negotiable.
So the fact we’ve seen Melania in no fewer than five outfits in the past 48 hours and that all of them – from the Burberry trench she arrived in to the canary yellow evening gown she wore to the state banquet – have become talking points, is significant.
And, as an American fashion expert who has followed her career closely, I would say completely by design.
From the moment King Charles extended the invitation for a second state visit to President Trump in February, Melania will have been planning her sartorial roll call with military-like precision. This is how she operates.
Each detail would have been conceived, crafted, tailored and tuned by both Melania and her trusted personal stylist, designer Herve Pierre.
The usual diktats of diplomatic dressing to which the Princess of Wales adheres are not for the First Lady. While that trench by the legendary British label may have seemed a nod to her host country, it came with a Melania twist.
It was dramatically floor-length and vintage, from a 2020 collection when Riccardo Tisci was the brand’s creative director.
Melania Trump is pictured in a striking yellow gown at the state banquet
Melania dons a navy blazer and skirt during the ceremonial welcome at Windsor Castle
Melania is seen wearing a Ralph Lauren jacket and capris with brown snakeskin heels
Melania has spent the last two decades amassing a collection of enviable couture pieces and this was her shopping from her closet.
Juxtaposed with her black Christian Dior leather boots, the traditional piece transformed into a bold statement – and served as a reminder Melania remains a woman determined to write her own fashion rulebook.
And that message again found form when she stepped off Marine One on to the lawns of Windsor Castle on Wednesday, this time wearing haute couture courtesy of former Dior womenswear designer Maria Grazia Chiuri.
While many attributed the look to the French fashion house’s new creative director JW Anderson, who’s from Northern Ireland, Melania showcased the work of his predecessor, whose curvaceous yet feminine silhouettes have become a hallmark of Melania’s style.
The outfit, a daring reinvention of founder Christian Dior’s iconic Bar suit, was not ready-to-wear but a custom creation that would have added at least one further zero to the usual four-figure cost of such ensembles.
The suit matched the cold and grey that greeted her and was offset with a violet wool hat from Dior milliner Stephen Jones that, as many critics observed, hid most of her face.
In reality it protected her from the prying gaze of clicking cameras. Only those closest to her – including the Prince and Princess of Wales who were there to greet her – had a window into her world. Unlike Camilla and Kate who chose hats that framed their faces, Melania’s obscured her own and caused controversy – much like the Eric Javits boater she wore on Inauguration Day in January.
Her wool number mimicked Christian Dior’s New Look hats – which came to epitomise feminine chic under a new post-war world order, with a saucer-style chapeau as the crowning top.
Melania is seen in a Burberry trench coat and Christian Dior black boots Saucer as she arrives at Stansted Airport
When Kate appeared in July in her own iteration of this eye-wateringly expensive outfit (the ready-to-wear Bar jacket retails for £3,400) complete with a chapeau, the homage to the visiting French head of state was considered a masterclass in royal dressing.
For Melania, freed from any such constraints, Dior was the obvious choice for a moment that expected the razor-sharp chic required from a political consort on the world stage.
But it was a crepe evening gown created by US designer Wes Gordon for Carolina Herrera that she wore for the highlight of her visit – the state banquet held in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle – that raised the most eyebrows.
Standing amid the gilt-edged splendour the President so unashamedly admires and tries to replicate in his own residences, Melania wore a shocking yellow off-the-shoulder column dress with a lilac satin belt.
With her only jewellery being a pair of emerald and diamond earrings – she was, neck bare and no tiara, a burst of modernity.
Embracing a colour combination that is virtually unheard of on the red carpet – not to mention amid the formality of British royal dressing – her choice was almost universally condemned as a disaster by the fashion press.
Clearly unconcerned with selecting a British designer for the all-important moment, Melania showed her intention to operate irrespective of any interests apart from her own.
She simply doesn’t care about the opinions of either the public or Press, or the tiaras and orders – and this was on full display as she stood alongside her white-tie clad husband and the King and Queen. Whatever anyone else thought of her choice, the poise, confidence and stature that carried Melania through the evening screamed self-assurance – and a rather pointed ambivalence.
Melania opts for a Louis Vuitton skirt suit during a tour of the Royal Library at Windsor Castle
By curating a series of head-turning outfits, Melania ensured that, even amid the lavish displays at Windsor Castle, she stood out, holding her own among the other women in attendance – notably, a much younger Princess of Wales, who seems to have caught her husband’s eye. As Oscar Wilde once noted: ‘Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.’
The whirlwind visit finished with a ladies day – a guided visit by Queen Camilla of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House and a meet and greet with Scouts alongside the Princess of Wales in Frogmore Gardens.
For the former, Melania returned to her usual cool, Upper East Side glamour – a custom-made caramel lambskin skirt suit by Louis Vuitton, single-breasted with vanilla trimmings, paired with high snakeskin pumps by Manolo Blahnik.
Some have concluded the subtlety of Melania’s choices for Kate’s Scouts adventure – Ralph Lauren suede cargo jacket and capris with (shock!) flats (albeit £730 Trompette Quadrata leather ballet flats by Roger Vivier) – were a reflection of the First Lady digesting the morning’s fashion commentary over breakfast in bed.
But again, I know the outfit would have been meticulously engineered months beforehand.
Though both women turned to the same doyenne of American fashion, Ralph Lauren, they interpreted him in drastically different ways – Kate embracing the romanticism of his Victorian-inspired looks in a birdseye tweed midi skirt, and Melania in the calm and collected sort of ensemble that would slip seamlessly into his Madison Avenue flagship store in New York – which undoubtedly is where the piece was sourced.
Little about Melania’s five outfits adhered to convention – and she certainly saw no need to pay undue attention to the British fashion industry which has shown little interest in dressing her.
Like the visit overall, this was not an American charm offensive, but a chance for Britain to put its best foot forward and for its guests and to be exactly who they are.
