It’s whatever you want it to be
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I think everyone can agree that making Donald Trump look like a sideshow is a task of considerable difficulty. And yet his wife Melania achieved exactly that on Inauguration Day on 20th January 2025 – by sporting some rather striking headwear.
I am talking of course about the navy-blue boater hat with the white band by designer Eric Javits which she matched with a military-style trench coat, a simple ivory silk blouse and spiked heels.
A former model, Melania knows exactly what she’s doing with fashion, so I think we can assume that every detail of this outfit was carefully thought through in advance in terms of the message it was intended to send out.
And that makes it worth thinking about.
A woman of few words
Now, I’m pretty clueless about style – which I take time out of my busy schedule to whinge about here. Honestly – if I’ve got a style icon at all, then it’s probably Steve “Single-Outfit” Jobs.
So it’s a tad daring of me to attempt to analyse Melania’s sleek inauguration look, even on a superficial level. But, if you’re intrigued by the current Mrs Trump (and it’s hard not to be), then her clothes are just about the only clues you have as to what she’s thinking or trying to tell you. Because she doesn’t say an awful lot.
And who can blame her? As the wife of one of the most polarising political figures in America’s history, Melania quickly became a convenient secondary target for Donald Trump’s many, many haters as well as an almost uniformly hostile media. Fashion houses – which usually fight to be first in line to clothe the First Lady – refused to have anything to do with her.
Since 2016, everything Melania has and hasn’t done, everything she has or hasn’t said has been scrutinised and criticised. She has been accused of everything imaginable: of enabling her husband, of thinking exactly the same as him purely due to being married to him, of not loving her husband, of being a gold-digger, of not smiling enough. She has complained of being debanked for her political links and had to endure an FBI raid on her home.
After all of that, it really isn’t surprising that she has become much more cautious and distanced in her dealings with people outside of her trusted inner circle.
Letting her clothes do the talking
Quite soon into her husband’s first term as POTUS, Melania must have realised that she couldn’t do anything right and that it was pointless trying to win people over who have decided to hate her no matter what.
So she retreated into silence and let her clothes do the talking – sometimes subtly, sometimes not.
By the time the 2024 election rolled around, Melania had cultivated a solid reputation for mystery and enigma. She appeared only a handful of times on the campaign trail, each time causing the gossip-happy among the general population to wildly speculate about the possible reasons for her extended absences and sudden reappearance.
It appears that, in Melania’s case, silence really is golden – because it keeps people guessing. And interested.
Melania’s hat
The inauguration hat – pulled down so low that you could barely see her eyes – was fully in line with Melania’s clear determination to protect herself from attack and exercise maximum control over the public’s access to her.
And what an effect it had.
Mrs Trump stands in the middle of pictures of her husband’s swearing in – a silent and inscrutable centre of gravity in the proceedings. With her eyes hidden, the viewer is denied any chance to read her expressions or reactions to events. Even the newly sworn-in President found himself being kept at a physical distance by The Hat when he went in to give his wife a peck on the cheek and almost crashed right into its broad brim.
The Hat was not just headwear: it was a shield. And a screen – in more ways than one.
The vision of a First Lady
By keeping her public appearances and pronouncements to a minimum, Melania deeply irritates those who are attached to a vision of the First Lady as being constantly present, always open to the public, a perfect hostess, and a softening presence at the side of the world’s most powerful man. The perfect American wife.
According to this understanding, First Ladies are there to pick out the White House china, smile nicely for the camera when required and act as a voice for the disadvantaged in American society. They aren’t supposed to keep people guessing as to their intentions and whereabouts and then smoulder silently under a wide-brimmed hat.
We know that Michelle Obama, a highly successful woman in her own right, had misgivings about life in the White House and the role which was foisted on her by her husband’s ambitions which she had never been “that wild about”. And one does rather wonder what traditionalists would have expected from Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff if she’d have won the 2024 election. Would he have had to coo over expensive porcelain too?
So, the expectations on “first spouses” had already begun to shift along with societal and political change. Melania choosing to carve out her own, more controlled approach to the role should never have been an issue or a surprise. After all, the public can’t expect to abuse the First Lady so much and still be rewarded with permanent smiles. No relationship works like that.
Yet, if her critics stopped to think about it, Mysterious Melania is still giving the public exactly what they want in a First Lady.
To understand why, you have to look across The Pond.
Not that different to the Brits
While strolling around the First Ladies section of the Museum of American History in Washington D.C. this past October – inspecting the White House china sets, loving Grace Coolidge’s 1920s “flapper” dresses – it struck me just how similar the denizens of the world’s greatest republic are to British fans of the royal family when it comes to our relationships to the figures at the heart of our respective nations.
Of course, we know their histories, their policies, and something of their character. Presidents, First Ladies and members of the British Royal Family are still private individuals. But, by virtue of the office or position they hold, they are also public property, obligated to serve the public and meet our legitimate expectations.
But beyond the clear and the constitutional, what exactly these expectations are gets fuzzy. What people expect from a First Lady or a member of the Royal Family is partially set by tradition and past holders of the same position – but it’s also highly subjective and varies from one person to another.
How can you possibly please everybody? Obviously you can’t. So what to do?
Silence as a strategem
When it comes to maintaining support among a culturally heterogeneous, restive or highly polarised population – or simply limiting the damage they can do to you – silence may be the ideal solution.
By keeping as much of your person, your thoughts and your feelings concealed, you present as a blank screen onto which people are free to project their own personal expectations and beliefs about who you are, what you are thinking, and what you mean for the nation. That stillness minimises the possibility of attack by not giving anything of your inner life away, keeps people at a distance – but also allows them to keep the assumptions and wishes they have projected onto you intact. That keeps them at peace with you.
One cannot please all of the people all the time, but silence allows you to keep more people happy more of the time. Which seems like a very sensible goal for politicians, their wives and royals alike.
A royal role model
The best known practitioner of this strategy was of course the late Queen Elizabeth II. She ascended to her strange and anachronistic position in Britain’s antique constitutional order in the mid 20th century. With the culture of deference in terminal decline, republicanism on the rise and a savage media waiting for any misstep to go on the attack – not to mention several mischievous family members and hangers-on – the Queen had her work cut out to keep daylight from shining in on the royal magic.
But she understood better than almost anyone else that the best way to stay in the public’s good books and carry on the ancient institution she sat at the helm of was to shut the hell up.
Over Elizabeth’s record-breaking reign, we never discovered what she thought about current events, the politics of the day, whatever meltdown was going on within the family – or much else. Any statements and speeches were kept neutral, emotion-free and were done with her own brand of steady diplomatic aplomb before disappearing again behind the stage curtains of monarchy.
Rinsing and repeating this approach over seven decades made the Queen a symbol of calm, continuity and security in a rapidly changing world. Not just that: she became the emotional rock and the (grand)mother to the nation. Even the republicans had respect.
When it came to using silence as an instrument of power, QEII wrote the manual.
Learning from the best
Well, Melania has clearly got that memo. She knows that she has a central role to play in the life of the United States, but also that the knives are out and ready to get her at every opportunity. And she’s not going to take abuse from the public and smile sweetly for the camera as if nothing happened. So she follows the Queen’s excellent example and stays quiet, lets her clothes do the talking and leaves everyone guessing.
Hence: The Hat.
Offered up as a literal screen between herself and the public, Melania’s hat is the perfect surface on which the public can project their wishes, thoughts and expectations on their repeat First Lady.
And, at the end of the day, that’s what the American public has always wanted.
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Related articles:
The death of Queen Elizabeth and the uniting power of ritual
Random US history facts for the exceptionally nerdy
Great Art Encounters – Ben Shahn Murals in Washington D.C.
Megyn Kelly – 8 reasons why she should be every girl’s role model
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Image credits: Tile image generated using ChatGPT; photo of Melania’s 2017 gown taken by the author (2024)