2017 was the year of the sleeves for FLOTUS

If there has been a single defining characteristic of Melania Trump’s public profile over the past year, it has been her relationship with sleeves. They have served as a dramatic flourish. They have been rolled up in empathy. They have been self-consciously ignored. They have reflected her personal fashion sense, the artifice inherent in the ill-defined role of first lady and the privilege of life in the White House.

Her sleeves are always in service to the picture. And there is always a picture.

The mere fact that sleeves are even considered part of her fashion profile has a lot to do with her predecessor, who more often than not shunned them. Michelle Obama made sleeveless dresses a style signature, even posing for her first official White House portrait wearing a sleeveless black Michael Kors dress. Obama’s bare arms were in keeping with contemporary fashion, but their particularly lean musculature also served as a silent disquisition on the subject of physical fitness, one of her early East Wing initiatives. In contrast, the new first lady chose a long-sleeve black Dolce & Gabbana jacket for her first portrait. Trump’s fondness for sleeves is not a pragmatic matter of covering her arms. Indeed, just because a garment has sleeves is no guarantee that those sleeves will actually be used.  When she wears an overcoat or sweater, often the sleeves hang, inert, like a pair of limp, vestigial wings draped across her shoulders.

During her first year of official appearances, Trump has used fashion as costuming. Her clothes function as part of the day’s mise-en-scene. If her public performance is communicating empathy for hurricane victims, she pulls her hair into a ponytail, tops it with a baseball cap and rolls up her sleeves. When leading children through the White House Kitchen Garden, she wears a red plaid shirt with matching gardening gloves. When representing the United States on an official visit to China, her dress recalls a traditional cheongsam. Her attire reflects her day’s obligations, but it rarely carries the banner of made-in-America patriotism or a nod to a host country’s creative industry. Trump may engage in soft diplomacy — hugging children, touring landmarks, smiling (sometimes) — but it is not fashion-specific.

Trump’s favored European brands are not new or up-and-coming. They are brands deeply rooted in their country’s traditions, history and psyche. Dior and Chanel are embedded in the French national identity. Dolce & Gabbana celebrates the cultural traditions of southern Italy. Delpozo, another Trump favorite, is a decades-old Spanish label. They are their country’s fancy iterations of Ford pickups, Yankees baseball caps and Levi’s. These brands vehemently and ostentatiously contradict the administration’s rallying cry to buy American-made products, support American manufacturing and celebrate America.

But the clothes look good in the pictures, mostly. Ultimately, the picture is the point.

Trump dresses for the event — not to expound upon the meaning of the event. Her verbal communication with the public has been limited; aesthetically, she offers only snippets of subtext, context or nuance. For the Easter Egg Roll, she wore an Easter egg-pink dress. For the Fourth of July, she wore a flag blue-and-white sundress. When greeting law enforcement and military personnel, she dressed in an olive-drab puffer coat.

In her public appearances, Trump’s chosen designer may be American-born, immigrant or foreigner. The label could be that of a legacy brand or a fairly established one. Her choices are not likely to be mass-market. America First is not part of her fashion philosophy.

She dresses to please herself and to please the eye. In the moment and for the history books.

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