After showing some skin, some more skins? Such was the protocol-stretching imagery of Melania Trump’s appearance on the second, and final, day of the state visit to Britain.
To be specific: For her morning tour of the Royal Library at Windsor Castle with Queen Camilla, the first lady donned a neat caramel-colored Louis Vuitton skirt suit — entirely in leather. Then, for her outdoor stroll with Catherine, Princess of Wales, she swapped the Vuitton for a chocolate suede Ralph Lauren safari jacket, worn with beige Loro Piana slacks. The better to navigate the wilds of Frogmore Gardens, perhaps. Or maybe the wilds of international relations.
Like the off-the-shoulder gown Mrs. Trump wore for the state banquet, which challenged royal tradition and propriety by revealing her clavicle — no longer explicitly forbidden for royal events, but unusual — the buttoned-up leather and suede seemed superficially appropriate. Almost prim. And they tapped into more unconventional associations having to do with the food chain and who, exactly, dominates.
Put another way: This was not the “respectable Republican cloth coat” that Richard Nixon praised his wife for wearing in 1952. Or even the hunter green pussy-bow blouse and matching blazer Princess Catherine wore with a brown midiskirt for the garden stroll.
The looks were, however, entirely in line with Mrs. Trump’s own taste (which hews to the military and has featured safari-style jackets numerous times) and her boundary-pushing approach to her current role, in which she has been only sporadically present at the White House.
In this, they also matched Mr. Trump’s decision to swap the dark suit and royal purple tie he wore to hobnob with King Charles for his signature America First uniform of bright blue suit, red tie and white shirt for his meeting and news conference with Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Not to mention his tendency to go off script. In both cases, the clothes asserted an agenda of a different kind.
Finally, Mrs. Trump’s Ralph Lauren jacket was a neat narrative bookend to the Burberry trench she wore when she arrived in Britain — an American brand worn to return to America; a British brand worn to start — but in the end, the company that might have benefited the most from the costuming of the visit was neither of the above.
It was LVMH, the French luxury conglomerate.
LVMH, after all, owns Dior, which made the suit Mrs. Trump wore on day one; Louis Vuitton; and Loro Piana. It also owns Tiffany, the company that created the brooch the Trumps presented to Queen Camilla during the official gift exchange. And LVMH is, in turn, owned by Bernard Arnault, who was a guest at Mr. Trump’s most recent inauguration, along with his daughter, Delphine, the Dior chief executive.
Mr. Arnault is also currently the world’s seventh-richest man. That’s royalty of a different kind.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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