Melania Trump launches her long-awaited first-lady initiative, “Be Best,” focusing on issues that children confront. (May 7)
AP
First lady Melania Trump, wearing a half-white outfit, prepares to speak on FLOTUS initiatives in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 7, 2018.(Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP)
The rules have long been clear: Don’t wear white before Memorial Day!
But first lady Melania Trump has not followed many of the rules governing the largely undefined job of FLOTUS so why should the former fashion model follow outdated “rules” of fashion?
She doesn’t and she didn’t: She appeared before a crowd in the Rose Garden on Monday to give her first lengthy speech laying out her FLOTUS agenda, a campaign to promote the well-being of children she calls “Be Best.”
She was wearing a creamy white skirt. Gasp!
And, as she approached the podium down the covered walkway from the White House, photographers captured her in her customary towering heels: They were unmistakably white . Peeping below as she walked: Red soles characteristic of her favorite shoe designer, Christian Louboutin.
She topped off her ensemble in a buttery caramel-colored leather jacket by Ralph Lauren (about $6,000), according to White House Fashion, the Twitter account that tracks her style.
I believe #FLOTUS is wearing a Ralph Lauren Collection leather jacket at the launch of her initiative Be Best today! It is available here ($5,990): https://t.co/WC6QGXOkKQ
?White House Livestream pic.twitter.com/omCxMdptaA— White House Fashion (@WhiteHouse_Fash) May 7, 2018
Americans have noticed that very little about Melania Trump’s term as first lady thus far has been conventional: She started later than is traditional (she delayed moving into the White House until June 2017 so her 12-year-old son Barron could finish the school year).
Reserved and low-key compared to her flamboyant husband, she has said little in public (an immigrant from Slovenia, English is not her first language). She has often carried out public engagements, especially those involving visits to kids in hospitals, without a press pool.
And she has gone her own way (taking a separate car from her husband to the State of the Union speech, for instance) when it suited her, and she does not feel the need to explain.
First lady Melania Trump and French first lady Brigitte Macron tour the National Gallery of Art in Washington on April 24, 2018. (Photo: SAUL LOEB, AFP/Getty Images)
Moreover, white is a favorite color in her fashion palette. Just last month, during the official state visit of French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, she and the French first lady toured a French Post-Impressionist exhibit at the National Gallery of Art — and both were wearing white outfits.
Mrs. Trump even sported an elaborate white hat by a favorite designer, Hervé Pierre.
And besides all that, this “rule” about when to start wearing white is old…er, hat anyway.
According to fashion-conservative Family Circle magazine, it’s a myth. Color is not the issue, the magazine says, it’s the type of fabric that matters.
“A white skirt and even a pair of cropped white pants can be seen at a holiday party in the middle of December,” the magazine declared online. “However, do not try to wear white linen pants in February. Wearing white in the winter can be glamorous when worn correctly. You have to consider the fabric first. Wool, Flannel and even silk are appropriate for the cooler seasons.”
What are rules for if not to be broken, asked Glamour magazine.
“Fashion breaks all the rules, and that one about not wearing white until after Memorial Day is seriously out of date,” the writers sniffed in 2011.
So there.
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