All of Melania Trump’s recent actions — from releasing a memoir to doing chatty Fox News interviews to filming an Amazon documentary — seem to say, I actually love being First Lady, so let’s not talk about how I’ve been “missing” for the past two years. Yet weirdly, the outfit Melania wore to the second inauguration of Donald Trump screams Where in the World Is Melania Trump?
She showed up to the inauguration on Monday morning wearing a long, dark coat, which appears black from a distance but is actually navy, and a matching wide-brimmed hat. The coat, skirt, and blouseensemble was created by American designer Adam Lippes and Eric Javits designed the matching hat.
“It’s a time of some restraint, and it’s really sort of a turning point to more conservative values, I think,” he told ABC News. “And I think she was thinking of protocol and looking very elegant and very simple in a way … it still was a very powerful visual message.”
It makes sense that “elegant” is what they were going for. But to a lot of people, it’s giving “Carmen Sandiego found at a funeral.”
The ‘80s video game franchise and spinoff geography-based PBS children’s game show a surprising fashion reference for Melania, or really any First Lady. Melania went with a powder blue Jackie Kennedy-inspired look for her husband’s first inauguration in 2017.
And First Ladies tend to wear bright, happy colors to the inauguration, even when we know they are miserable about the person succeeding their husband. For example, First Lady Jill Biden went with a deep purple ensemble on Monday:
But Melania is an oddly unconventional First Lady. So why not wear a hat that hides your eyes in most Inauguration Day photos?
And prioritize your headwear over giving your husband an inauguration kiss?
Melania kept the hat on all day, even as Donald lightly mocked it during his post-inauguration speech at Emancipation Hall.
“Then we went out to the helicopter, though, just prior to this, and said goodbye and custom, and the wind is blowing like crazy, and with the hat that she’s wearing, she almost blew away,” Trump said.
“We almost lost her. She was being elevated off the ground. She almost blew away,” the president added.
It’s always impossible to know what Melania Trump is thinking. Is she telling us that she actually isn’t excited about heading back to the White House? Trying to hide her eyes because she doesn’t want us to see her tears of joy? Dropping an Easter egg for the millennials who still can’t get Rockapella’s banger of a theme song out of their heads?
All I can say is I’m appreciating this hit of ‘90s TV nostalgia, and I hope she does Wishbone next.
This post has been updated.
More on the Trump Inauguration
- The Cultural Ascendancy of the New Young Right
- All That Glitters
- Ivanka Trump’s Inauguration ‘Prayer’: Dad Will Become Different Person
