First Lady Melania Trump’s outfit at a recent event has sparked a heated debate

One surprising detail in the First Lady’s return to Washington has revealed a dramatic shift.

COMMENT

Melania Trump and Jesus. Now there are two people who know how to stage a comeback.

After what feels like an age and a day since being spotted anywhere near the Beltway, the First Lady has reappeared in Washington and didn’t even have to go to the bother of rolling back a rock. (Hell on the nails, I’d imagine.)

On Monday, Mrs Trump made her third trip back to D.C. since the inauguration to host the staple, annual White House Easter egg Roll where she presided over thousands of children, a reported 30,000 eggs, and a giant bunny that had a real knack for awkwardly lurking near her husband Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump with the Easter bunny. Picture: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

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As far as First Lady activities goes, the Easter egg Roll is up there with obsessing about the drapery, fussing with china sets, and politely feigning disinterest if you hear a stray cabinet secretary indiscreetly gabbing about an air strike. It’s 101, brass tacks, nuts and bolts stuff.

But we are not talking a bog-standard, bust out the pearls First Lady are we?

Mrs Trump has never been one for the neatly prescribed which extended to her choice of outfit for the Roll. Right at the moment that Mr Trump’s White House is involved in an ongoing war of words and tariffs with Canada, at a moment of heightened tensions with their poutine-loving sibling to the north, what did his wife choose to wear?

Why, an off-white trench coat from Montreal-based luxury outerwear label Mackage.

The parsing, the analysis, and the divining for meaning began immediately.

Many were confused by her choice of outfit. Picture: AP Photo/Alex Brandon

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It’s been a positive age since a First Lady’s fashion choice sparked such a flurry of theorising about possible geopolitical subtext, probably since that one time Pat Nixon accidentally wore a Maoist collar to a Thanksgiving turkey pardoning.

One interpretation of Mrs Trump’s Mackage trench might be that this was a strategic show of support for Canada from a woman schooled, thanks to a childhood under Soviet Russian rule, in the language of the coded gesture.

Or maybe it was about her presenting a reassuring image of calm in all the sky-is-falling yelling about a possible global trade war.

Or maybe she just didn’t bother to read the label or maybe…

Here’s another theory: That not only her choice of brand but even her very un-spring-like choice of the sort of coat better suited to some soignée Upper East Side crime solving tells us something else entirely. Mrs Trump is remaking the job of FLOTUS into something which is distinctly hers entirely.

A young girl shows her "Make America Great Again" hat to Melania Trump. Picture: Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP

The dog-eared First Lady binder, I’m assuming left behind by Nancy Reagan, full of handy tabs about what to serve when Liberace comes for supper or if a Bush wife gets loose in the Rose Garden?

That’s of no interest to Mrs Trump.

That approach extends to the model turned political plus one even transplanting her whole life to Washington.

Since the inauguration and prior to Easter, the 54-year-old largely flown so far under the radar you would need Pentagon stealth technology to find her.

What has Mrs Trump been doing since Mr Trump returned to the Oval Office?

The answer to that question is probably closely guarded a secret as where Jimmy Hoffa is buried, who killed Marilyn and how many interns have lost fingers toiling in the Kardashian-Jenner social media workhouse.

They attended the White House’s Easter egg Roll. Picture: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

The only generally accepted detail about Mrs Trump’s life is that she has most likely been spending much of her time in New York where the Trumps’ son, 19-year-old Barron, is attending university.

(I’m assuming so she can pack his daily lunchbox PB & J sambo to send him off for a day of higher learning surrounded by about as many security guards as are stationed outside certain nuclear missile silos.)

The bottom line: Mrs Trump has not and will not be conforming to fit into any pre-cut, pre-fashioned First Lady mould, no matter how good a state Eleanor Roosevelt left it in.

There has been a clear vibe shift in Mrs Trump’s look since her first go in the White House.

During her debut few months in 2017, the mother-of-one opted for a much more colourful wardrobe, busting out baby blue, red, more red, khaki, pale green, rich emerald green, and even added in the occasional vivid pattern.

First lady Melania Trump and their son Barron at Easter in 2017. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

This time around, her look has been much more pared back and minimalist with her sticking to a palette of navy, black, white, tan and grey. (The one outlier – the leopard print coat she wore to the Women of Courage Awards.)

This evolution is perfectly encapsulated by what she wore to her debut Easter egg Roll in 2017 – a floaty, soft pink frock – compared to her 2025 trench.

She wore a very different type of outfit to the 2017 event. Picture: AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski

You have to give it to Mrs Trump. She is not conforming to expectations but wearing what she wants. Her style is hers and hers alone.

And there’s a clear upside to her choice of Easter coat.

Handily, should she ever decide, on a wet New York afternoon, to embark on a side hustle of investigating upper crust whodunits, maybe with a wise-cracking but loveable sidekick, well, she’s already got the very chic wardrobe to match.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as First Lady Melania Trump’s outfit at a recent event has sparked a heated debate