This is not the first time we’ve seen luxury fashion brands eager to dress the faces of fascist regimes. Most famously, Hugo Boss himself (the founder of the eponymous corporation) was a member of the Nazi Party. His company notably used forced labour from prisoner-of-war camps to facilitate his brand, which in its original conception, was used to manufacture uniforms for the SS, the SA, and the Hitler Youth. 

Today, we see brands like Oscar De La Renta, Dior and Givenchy clamouring to dress America’s returning First Family, with Melania Trump being spotted wearing an assortment of custom pieces leading up to and during her husband’s inauguration. This, however, is in stark contrast to the attitude we saw from major fashion houses impending Donald Trump’s first term, with designers such as Marc Jacobs being openly hostile when asked whether he would be open to dressing Melania. The designer stated: “I have no interest whatsoever in dressing Melania Trump”, with fashion magazine editor Anna Wintour having denied a cover story to Melania following her first interval as First Lady Of The United States in 2017. The most striking rejection by a fashion designer of the Trumps came from Sophie Theallet, who following Trump’s election in November 2016, penned an open letter urging her peers and fellow fashion designers to boycott dressing Melania Trump. She cited the rhetoric of “racism, sexism and xenophobia” perpetuated by Donald Trump during his presidential campaign as “incompatible with the shared values we live by”, opting to close her statement with the powerful phrase: “Integrity is our only true currency’.

However, it seems that those in the fashion world have changed their tune, with Melania arriving at Arlington National Cemetery the day before Trump’s inauguration wearing Christian Dior and Louboutin heel boots. Another member of the First Family whose outfits drew a notable amount of attention is Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, who stepped out at his inauguration on the 20th of January wearing a matching emerald green set accompanied by a Dior handbag. It was this colour palette and conservative style of the suit that led many to draw eerie comparisons between Ivanka’s ensemble and the character of Serena Joy, a main antagonist in Margaret Atwood's unfortunately increasingly relevant novel-turned-show, The Handmaid's Tale. 

For the inaugural ball, Ivanka donned a black and white Givenchy dress, which paid homage to Audrey Hepburn in 1954’s Sabrina. Speaking on behalf of Ivanka, a representative from the White House said that she was “incredibly grateful for the Arnault family and the Givenchy atelier for creating this masterpiece, capturing the original artistry and elegance with remarkable precision and craftsmanship. Audrey Hepburn has long been a personal inspiration to Ivanka. She views it as a great privilege to honour her legacy this way and is incredibly grateful to the team at Givenchy for bringing this moment to life”. Despite this, Ivanka did garner some backlash from journalists, with Vogue cynically describing her final ensemble as having “all the depth and ingenuity of an ‘Audrey Hepburn Style’ Pinterest Board”. 

Yet, the most significant outfit of the inaugural period was arguably Melania’s inaugural ensemble. Designed by Adam Lippes, Melania wore a black-rimmed hat with a matching coat and skirt to her husband’s Presidential inauguration. Why is this so important? I believe this was an opportunity that allowed Melania Trump to prove herself. Cast your minds back to 2009, when Obama was inaugurated as America’s 44th president of the United States: life was good. Stood beside him was the woman herself Michelle Obama, wearing Isabel Toledo, an independent American fashion designer known for embracing diversity and eccentricities in fashion. Michelle Obama had recruited Toldedo to design her inaugural outfit in 2009, with her adoring what Toledo themselves described as the colour of ‘sunshine’. Similarly, we saw Kamala Harris in the lead-up to the 2021 inauguration in pieces all by African-American designers. Melania Trump demonstrated that by staking a claim at an insidery name, she can assert herself as just as influential and legitimate as the prominent women in the White House before her.

But why are fashion designers so eager to dress the Trumps in the first place? Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck suggested that the fashion world is potentially afraid of the President. Anna Wintour countered this, citing the increasing quantity of designers wanting to work with the Trumps as merely a business decision, allowing designers to get their work seen by the masses and allowing them to maintain business, which in recent years has been declining. According to a Bain Consultancy study released in November, global sales of personal luxury goods are forecast to shrink in 2025 for the first time since the Great Recession, which could potentially worsen as a result of Donald Trump's pledged tariffs of up to 20% on imports. Furthermore, the study found that many Gen Z customers feel alienated by the luxury fashion market because “either they can't afford to shop, or they don't want to because they don’t feel there is enough juice” (the market is uninspiring).  

Ultimately, it’s important that we recognise that the fashion world doesn't seem to be shying away from dressing the Trumps. Regardless of whether this is a business decision or not, having clothes represented by figures such as Melania Trump is at best complicity in Donald Trump’s attitudes and rhetoric, and at worst endorses the xenophobia, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia and racism that is perpetuated by his administration. This has a much wider impact on how fashion is then going to be produced and created in the future. How will the complicity in these values impact the inclusion of up-and-coming queer, black, Latinx and trans designers who have endlessly contributed to the development of fashion into what we know it today? Especially since they have been fundamental in shaping popular trends and cultural movements. To echo The Guardian columnist Rhiannon Lucy Cosslet, fashion can be an act of resistance, but to take this a step further, I would also argue that now more than ever, fashion can also become an act of revolution.   

Grace Smart

Contributor

3rd March 2025