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Say what you will about First Lady Melania Trump, but some of her fashion choices are certainly… memorable. So memorable, in fact, that people are still talking about them years later. Actress Meryl Streep remembers one outfit in particular that left an impression, and it wasn’t a good one.
During an interview for Vogue, filmmaker Greta Gerwig asked Meryl and Anna Wintour about whether “women are meant to dress to communicate power.”
Anna mentioned several powerful women who express themselves through fashion.
She mentioned Michelle Obama, who she believes “always looks like herself.” Another example she thought of was New York City’s first lady, Rama Duwaji. “I’m full of admiration for New York City’s new first lady because she looks so cool and wears a lot of vintage—young and modern and also entirely herself,” Anna said.
And what about Melania? Well, Anna’s words sounded a bit less complimentary. “To be fair, Melania Trump also always looks like herself when she dresses,” she seemingly added as an afterthought.
Then, Meryl chimed in.
And though she didn’t criticize Melania (or her fashion) super directly, her comments made her feelings about the current first lady pretty clear. “I have so many thoughts about this,” Meryl said. “I think the most…powerful message that our current first lady sent was in the coat that said ‘I Really Don’t Care, Do U?’ when she was going to see migrant children who were incarcerated.” Oof.
Meryl added, “All dress is about expressing yourself, but we’re also subject to larger historical and political sweeps of expectation.”
At first, Melania tried to say her jacket was not meant to make a statement, but the fact that it actually had words on it made that pretty hard to believe. She later admitted that she hoped it would send a message—but not to or about the kids in a detention center. Instead, she claimed it was a message for her haters.
“It’s obvious I didn’t wear the jacket for the children, I wore the jacket to go on the plane and off the plane,” she said. “It was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. I want to show them I don’t care. You could criticize whatever you want to say. But it will not stop me to do what I feel is right.”
At the time, Melania also complained about people focusing on what she wears.
And regardless of how you feel about Melania, that’s a common complaint among women in the spotlight. Instead of focusing on what they’ve done, people seem more concerned with what they’re wearing. “I often asking myself, if I had not worn that jacket, if I will have so much media coverage,” Melania said at the time. “I would prefer they would focus on what I do and on my initiatives than what I wear.”
During her Vogue interview, Meryl touched on some of the double standards that exist for powerful men and women when it comes to fashion. “I’m stunned at how women in power have to have bare arms on television while men are covered in shirts and ties or a suit,” Meryl said. “There’s an apology built into women. They have to show their smallness. It’s compensatory: The advancements of women in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of this one have been destabilizing. It’s as if women have to say, ‘I’m little. I can’t walk in these shoes. I can’t run. I’m bare, not threatening.'”
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