This morning at 10am, I walked into the Regal Essex Crossing movie theater in Manhattan for the first New York screening of Melania. No screeners were made available ahead of time, and many members of the mainstream press were reportedly blocked from last night’s premiere screening at the Kennedy Center. The theater was quiet, save for about 10 people. Many appeared to be journalists, like myself, jotting down notes throughout the film. One reporter was interviewing attendees outside.
Melania, which was acquired by Amazon MGM Studios for $40 million, tackles the First Lady’s approach to image and perception during the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump’s inauguration for his second term. The film arrives in theaters at a particularly fraught moment in the US. Political tension has reached a fever pitch, following ICE’s occupation in Minneapolis and the killing of two American citizens amid protests. Its release fell on the day of a National Strike — no work, no school, no shopping — in solidarity with Minnesota and other areas facing violence from ICE. Nationwide protests are scheduled for this weekend, and celebrities and brands have endorsed the efforts.
That dissonance was apparent in the documentary, which barely delved into politics. It covered Melania’s outfits extensively, alongside the renovations she led in the first term (including the White House tennis courts and bowling alley). To songs by the Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson (Melania’s favorite), the First Lady jets between New York, Mar-a-Lago, and DC, conducting meetings with the Secret Service, to discuss inauguration logistics, and Zooming with France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, to discuss Melania’s child wellbeing initiative Be Best. The documentary showed clips of the First Lady watching news about the Los Angeles fires, and meeting with a Hamas kidnapping survivor — but these moments felt second to the pomp and circumstance of the inauguration itself, which was the focus of the latter half of the film. Before the credits, a list of Melania’s accomplishments thus far was splashed across the screen.
It made plain just how entrenched Melania Trump, a former model, is in the fashion industry, just as other First Ladies before her. Fashion photographer Ellen von Unwerth shot the movie poster, as well as a series of glamorous portraits of Melania to promote the film. The opening of the film appeared to recreate a fashion favorite, The Devil Wears Prada, following Melania’s snakeskin Louboutin heels before she boards a private plane from Mar-a-Lago to New York, where she enters an elevator inside Trump Tower. The first chunk of the film proceeds to focus heavily on fashion, and features Melania’s stylist Hervé Pierre (who also designed the black-and-white gown the First Lady wore to the inaugural ball last year) as well as New York designer Adam Lippes, who dressed Melania for the inauguration.
Despite that fashion narrative, there was little insight into the choices behind the clothes, nor the messaging she hoped to project with her stylistic choices. The focus was on the garments themselves: their construction; their fit; the “straight”, “sharp” details; and how good the First Lady looked in the clothing.
“I’d imagine it comes down to just what looks good and what she likes,” says stylist Bailey Moon, who served as Dr. Jill Biden s fashion advisor throughout her term as First Lady, of Melania’s style. “There’s no deeper meaning to it. And to me, there is no strategy. She’s a clothes horse; she likes clothes. When she likes a dress, she likes a dress. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.”
However, in a fraught political context — which has only heightened throughout the first year of Trump’s second term — many people do care where the clothing those in power choose to wear comes from. (Moon included; it’s why he refrains from working with brands that engage directly with this administration.) Fashion is first and foremost a business, but for brands, it’s not as simple as opting in or out. And, experts agree, remaining neutral is near impossible.
Fashion’s statement
At last night’s Kennedy Center premiere, Melania wore a black skirt suit from Dolce Gabbana, a brand she’s repeatedly turned to throughout her time in the White House, including for her official White House Portrait. The premiere look was not coordinated by the brand. (Dolce Gabbana declined to comment on account of the designers and CEO being in Miami for a forthcoming exhibition at ICA Miami.) Nicki Minaj, a newly-minted public Trump ally, attended in a look by Schiaparelli. Other Republican figureheads were also in the mix, including RFK Jr., Pete Hegseth, and Kelly Loeffler.
Melania’s choice of a buttoned-up skirt suit was notable — particularly in comparison to the glamazon gown she wore in her shoot with von Unwerth. The look aligns with that which the First Lady has projected throughout Trump’s presidency: sharp, a word that was used repeatedly throughout Melania when referencing how the First Lady wanted her garments to look.
When Melania wore Adam Lippes — a lesser-known American designer than her usual European go-tos — at the inauguration, onlookers wondered if this was a signal of what was to come from the First Lady’s fashion. Would she promote more American and emerging labels? American manufacturing is, after all, a Trump talking point.
Throughout Trump’s second term, the First Lady has worn more American designers than the first, including Ralph Lauren, Thom Browne and Proenza Schouler alongside Lippes, who also dressed her for the Military Parade. But, by and large, she’s stuck to the European powerhouses, wearing Givenchy for the 48th annual Kennedy Center Honors and Dolce Gabbana for the Congressional Ball, among other occasions.
All of the designers Vogue Business reached out to either declined to comment or did not respond to requests. One designer said that “we’ve chosen to approach dressing Mrs. Trump in the same way we do any other client, and for that reason we don’t discuss it publicly.” Another said that because the First Lady is a client — meaning she purchases the looks as any other VIC would — they could not comment.
That Melania is regarded as “any other client” in this context is significant in and of itself, for brands dressing public figures do not typically treat them as such. A look worn by former First Lady Michelle Obama, for instance, gets a PR blast. But active political figures are often treated differently. Not sending out blasts or overly communicating looks worn by political figures who are in office is fairly standard practice, says one publicist who runs his own agency and has coordinated looks for past and current politicians. “That’s from my KCD schooling,” he says. “I was working on [Alexander] McQueen. McQueen was doing all of the royals, and you don’t send press releases about the royals. It’s tacky.” He didn’t send a release when New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, artist Rama Duwaji, recently wore clients of his.
Plus, the reality is that, though Melania may not be your typical luxury client, she has been a client of many of these brands for many years prior to her husband taking office, and many of her current looks are likely still acquired through VIC managers rather than a brand’s PR representatives, the publicist says. One stylist estimates that at least 80% of Melania’s looks are purchased from stores like Saks and Bergdorf Goodman.
“Those VIC managers and top store associates have their own agenda with their own clients,” the publicist says. “It’s not necessarily the design team searching out Melania; Melania’s probably been shopping at Dior and Ralph [Lauren] for years. So there probably is a bit of a relationship there.” You can’t deny a client of 15-plus years access simply because you don’t align with their politics, they argue.
Brands can only control so much of when they show up on members of the administration, Melania included. Moon recalls being on the brand side during Trump’s first term. “She would wear things and we would just kind of be like, ‘ugh, OK’, and you just don’t do anything about it because you can’t prevent a customer from buying the clothes.”
In this second term, especially, if a brand that isn’t a fan of the administration sees the First Lady in its clothes, the safest call is to simply say nothing. “People are afraid to speak out with any sort of critical word; from a business perspective, [they fear] that they might be targeted or reprimanded or taken down in some way,” Moon says.
Politics of dress
Many designers who have spoken publicly about dressing Melania have attributed the decision (or openness) to the fact that she is the First Lady, and they would dress any First Lady of the United States.
When Ralph Lauren dressed Melania for the 2016 inauguration, the brand released a statement: “The Presidential Inauguration is a time for the United States to look our best to the world. It was important to us to uphold and celebrate the tradition of creating iconic American style for this moment.” Over many decades, Ralph Lauren has outfitted Presidents and First Ladies on both sides of the aisle.
Also in 2016, Thom Browne said: “Out of respect for the position of the First Lady of our United States, I would be honoured to be considered to design for any First Lady of the United States.” He didn’t dress the First Lady during President Trump’s first term, but she did sport Thom Browne on July 4, 2025. Browne’s team did not respond to a request for comment. Diane Von Furstenberg and Tommy Hilfiger also expressed that she “deserved respect” and designers “ought to be proud” to dress her, by virtue of her status as the First Lady.
In the second term, though, designers have quietened down. Not speaking out about dressing political figures may be a means of claiming neutrality. But not all in the industry are convinced neutrality is a choice anymore; it’s why multiple publicists and stylists, as well as brands, declined to comment for this piece, and why others spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“This wave of supposed neutrality has to end,” the publicist says, while acknowledging the fraught nature of dressing politicians. He recently declined to dress a politician in brands he works with — not because he didn’t agree with their politics, but because he knows it’s a fine line to toe and didn’t want to enlist his clients without proper consideration. “This was after discussing with my [brand] clients and being like, politics are iffy,” he says. That same politician ultimately ended up wearing the brand at a later date, after careful consideration.
“Image is such an important element of the political theater that happens every day,” Moon says. For brands, when dressing those whose politics may not align with their own, it becomes a question of morals versus money. “At what cost do we push the brand forward or hold it back based on the moral alignment piece — because we’re in the business of selling clothes,” Moon says. Lippes, for instance, told Vogue Runway last year that the sales post-inauguration were the “three best weeks of [his] career.”
Those working behind the scenes draw a line between brands that opt in via gifting or doing custom pieces versus those whose pieces are purchased; it’s a matter of active versus passive participation in the current administration. “There will come a time when we all have to wonder what we were saying and what we were doing about the state of politics and democracy,” the publicist says. “And I think I would be so ashamed to work for a company that does [the former]. It’s just not it.”
