Fashion

Bye-Don: a farewell to the Trump aesthetic


The age of Trump was an ugly one. An ugliness in profound and harrowing senses – racism, lies and callousness – extended into a literal ugliness that, while in no way as significant as the president’s actions, has often made the past four years feel like an assault on the senses. This administration has looked and sounded like no other, just as it has acted like no other. The nastiness of Trump’s pronouncements has many times been made more shocking by his language: the barked, capitalised tweets littered with errors and exclamation marks; the misogyny underscored by snickering profanity. Every unmasked public appearance has been a visceral reminder of a shirking of leadership and responsibility in the face of a public health crisis.

U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive on stage to formally kick off his re-election bid with a campaign rally in Orlando, Florida, U.S., June 18, 2019.
U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive on stage to formally kick off his re-election bid with a campaign rally in Orlando, Florida, U.S., June 18, 2019. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

To critique the Trump aesthetic is not to trivialise abominations, because his values and beliefs run through both. It starts at face value, where Trump’s brazenly artificial shade of salmon reflects not only his vanity, but his misconception that a three-week-Caribbean-cruise suntan is an appropriate look for a man entrusted with the highest and most serious of jobs. His overlong tie and oversized suits speak to a supersized ego. Trump makes no secret of the fact that looks matter to him. On formally announcing Mike Pence as his running mate in July 2016, Trump noted that Pence’s economic record as governor of Indiana was “the primary reason I wanted Mike, other than he looks very good, other than he’s got an incredible family, incredible wife and family”.

It feels tricky to unpick the looks of the women in Trump’s orbit without veering into sexism. There is no moral high ground in sneering at the tightness of dresses or the generic 90210-blond shade of hair dye. Yet there is something deeply unsettling about the Fox-News-adjacent wardrobe of the women around Trump. It is a look in which people-pleasing girlishness fights against steely vampishness, leaving no space for women to simply be adult humans. Consider, for instance, the omnipresent camera-friendly ringletted hairstyles, which sit somewhere between Medusa and a sweet 16th birthday party. For all its gloss, this is less like female empowerment than the values of the patriarchy, swallowed whole and served up with a smile.

President Trump accompanies the outgoing president Obama down to the Capitol.
The walk of the long tie: President Trump accompanies the outgoing president Obama down to the Capitol. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Meanwhile, Melania Trump ripped up the first lady fashion playbook with a wardrobe that was strangely, strikingly militaristic. Traditionally, the first lady softens the suited, solemn image of the husband she stands beside, but not Melania. She abided by the rules at the inauguration in 2017. The double-faced cashmere of her Ralph Lauren suit was as smooth as royal icing, the shade a nostalgic, Jackie O shade of powder blue. But soon after, she switched to a soldierly wardrobe that intensified the combative mood music around Trump. A vague air of abrasiveness turned sandpaper-rough in June 2018, when she wore a Zara jacket with a faux-graffiti slogan reading “I Really Don’t Care, Do U” to visit a shelter for unaccompanied children. Black and olive green became her signature colours. Had you not known that the woman standing next to the president was his wife, you might have assumed – when she was wearing a pith helmet or a severe Alexander McQueen suit in army green with snap-button pockets – that she was a military leader, on stage to remind the audience of the muscle behind the government machine.

First daughter Ivanka, who had her own label until it closed in 2018, has perhaps the most elevated taste level, the most sensitive antennae, in the Trump camp. In the early months of her father’s presidency, she seemed to be using her wardrobe to send intriguing smoke signals across party lines – mismatched earrings, for instance, as if to hint at an inner life as an independent-minded progressive woman. In the final chapters of the Trump era, she took to wearing all white, as if to lay claim to purity and wholesomeness, protecting her personal brand while the administration became more brazenly debased.

Ivanka Trump at the W20 Summit in Berlin, April 2017.
Were her mismatched earrings sending a message? Ivanka Trump at the W20 Summit in Berlin, April 2017. Photograph: Prensa Int/Rex/Shutterstock

What we choose to wear does not make us good people, or bad ones. But when populism is centre stage, then style, show and swagger are at the heart of politics. The past four years in US politics have been tough to watch on many levels. The changing of the guard in the White House is a sight for sore eyes.



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