Once again, when it came to Melania Trump, the statement was in the coat.
The brand that is the first lady’s took on a (slightly) new dimension on Thursday afternoon as Mrs. Trump joined her husband on the south lawn of the White House for the president’s annual Halloween celebration. Instead of what has become her increasingly clear signature black and white, she was, on this particular occasion, wearing — brown.
Specifically, a chocolate brown suede wrap coat from the French-Syrian label Nour Hammour, with a coordinating brown tweed skirt and orange snakeskin Manolo Blahnik stilettos.
The coat made her look like a well-polished oak tree and matched the autumnal leaves and gourds that decorated the White House grounds (not to mention the enormous faux harvest moon that loomed over it all from the Truman balcony). It was perhaps as much of a concession to costume as could be expected, given the image Mrs. Trump has been building in the second term.
It is one that focuses more on business (or at least the appearance of business, in the C-suite sense of the word) than the usual soft-power machinations of the first lady. One that tends to be expressed via strict monochromatic pantsuits and white button-ups — the kind she wore in her official portrait and when she announced last week that she had brokered a cease-fire for a village in Ukraine — rather than the pastels and prints that former first ladies often wore to represent the human side of the presidency.
In this context, the color of the Halloween coat stood out, if not its protective cut or its ability to function as a quasi coverup during a moment of public pageantry (or its high-fashion provenance).
Indeed, such marginally on-theme coats are starting to seem like something of a strategic trend for the first lady, especially at holiday times.
Last Halloween the first lady joined her husband to hand out candy in a heather wool Marni military coat, tightly belted as usual and trimmed in orange. This came after an orange suede coat she wore for Halloween in 2020, which in turn trailed a patchwork leather Michael Kors coat she wore in 2019 (one that looked sort of like a pile of fallen leaves), and a tan double-breasted Bottega Veneta style she wore in 2017.
And then there was the angelic white Dior coat she wore last year to greet the White House Christmas tree.
They all follow in the wake of the famous Zara jacket that Mrs. Trump wore in the first term, the one that declared “I really don’t care, do u” and that seems to have set the precedent for her coat game.
Certainly the Hammour coat, which is known as the Winona and retails for $1,875, made for a clear contrast with the more overt costumes worn by the spouses of other members of the Trump administration who were present with their families for the White House festivities: Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, wore a black skeleton hoodie; and Jennifer Rauchet, the wife of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wore Minnie Mouse ears.
(Their husbands followed Trump’s lead and stuck to their usual suits, with Hegseth in his favorite flag-themed accessories and Miller in military-style aviators.)
Still, even if she didn’t have ghosts or pumpkins printed on her look, Mrs. Trump was nevertheless in a costume of her own making. She wears coats the way previous first ladies have worn skirt suits, or pearls: as part of her uniform of unofficial office. They let her nod to any occasion without giving too much away.
Together, they tell their own story.
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