As President Donald Trump entered the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to be sworn into office on Monday, he moved to kiss the cheek of his wife Melania but was blocked by a wide-brimmed hat that the First Lady wore throughout the entirety of Inauguration Day.
The moment - and the hat - drew widespread attention on social media. Some complimented her look, saying the First Lady looked sophisticated and “stunning”.
Others likened her to fictional superthief character Carmen Sandiego and questioned whether she was deliberately trying to keep distance from her husband, and why she kept the hat on all day.
The navy, boater-style hat with white trim sat atop Melania Trump’s head through a morning church service, her husband’s swearing-in ceremony, a luncheon with Republican politicians and tech billionaires and a parade inside the Capital One Arena.
That was entirely appropriate etiquette, according to the hat’s American designer Eric Javits.
“Traditionally, you know, a hat should be worn all day,” Javits told Reuters. “You don’t take it off until you’re changing for another occasion.”
For much of the day, the hat obscured Melania Trump’s eyes for most viewers.
The First Lady, who rarely attended Trump’s campaign events last year, also wore a double-breasted navy mid-length jacket by Adam Lippes, another American designer.
“In my hands, it looks like a very sort of understated, humble hat,” Javits said. “And, you know, when she put it on, and you saw it with the ensemble and all that, her presence transformed it and made it something very powerful.”
An incoming First Lady’s outfit on Inauguration Day is frequently scrutinized by fashion experts, supporters and everyday voters who try to find significance in wardrobe choices.
Donald Trump joked about the hat during a speech following the inauguration ceremony, after his wife struggled to keep it on her head as the couple saw off former President Joe Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden, who departed Washington in a helicopter.
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“With the hat that she’s wearing, she almost blew away,” Donald Trump joked. “She was being elevated off the ground.”
Melania Trump, a former model, has made news before with her outfits. In 2018, during her husband’s previous term, a visit she made to a Texas shelter housing migrant children separated from their parents was overshadowed by a jacket she wore with the words: “I really don’t care, do u?” scrawled in white brush strokes on the back.
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