The Internet, desperate to ascribe purpose and deliberation to the ultimately irrelevant choices made by our current administration, has seized on Melania Trump's decision to wear white to Donald Trump's first State of the Union address.
The pundits! The twitters! The anticipation had mounted all week, and we needed to know: What note would Melania strike? What outfit would she use to communicate her displeasure or her resolve or her resilience or maybe even her resentment, following allegations reported in the The Wall Street Journal that her husband had paid a porn actress to keep quiet in the wake of an alleged extramarital affair? The State of the Union would be her first public appearance since the news broke. How much could she tell us with a dress?
Well, she selected a white Dior pantsuit, so we all decided: a lot. Except, we didn't know just what the message was supposed to be. Was she channeling the suffragettes, who wore white to seek emancipation under patriarchal law? Was she standing in opposition to the Democratic women who'd decided to wear black to the speech to honor the #MeToo movement? Was she sad? Defiant? Thrilled? Tortured? Was she like Hillary Clinton? Was she like Kesha? Was she a radical, traveling in a car to the joint session on her own, according to CNN? (Barack and Michelle Obama and George W. and Laura Bush all rode in the same vehicles to their respective addresses.)
What did it all mean?
Like you, I believe in the real power of fashion choices, and so I'm reluctant to dismiss even this one as superficial. It is so irresistible, the idea that we can to read into the hieroglyphics that are Melania's wardrobe, that we're one Rosetta Stone or Robin Givhan column from interpreting her sartorial language. But fashion amplifies a woman's voice. It can't provide one for the woman who has nothing to say.
