Melania Trump Wears Black to the President’s Speech (and Twitter Reacts)

The black suit appeared straightforward enough: monochrome, well fitting and designed by the well-known American designer Michael Kors.

As it turned out, the choice was more contentious than it seemed.

On Tuesday evening, as President Trump delivered his speech to a joint session of Congress, Twitter began dissecting Melania Trump’s outfit. The sequins covering the wool dinner jacket and skirt: too flashy. The price: at $4,595 for the skirt and $4,995 for the jacket, too high.

Some online commenters deemed the entire look inappropriate for Congress.

But then there was the issue of the color: black. Why choose black on a night when many Democratic women in Congress had decided to wear white as a show of unity for women’s rights?

The effort, led by Representative Lois Frankel of Florida, the chairwoman of the House Democratic Women’s Working Group, had been communicated to the group on Monday in a letter that called for members to wear white to “stand in solidarity with the women of our nation.”

Had Mrs. Trump been aware of the plan? Was her choice a comment on the matter? After all, as on past occasions, Mrs. Trump picked out the dress herself. At least that’s the impression Mr. Kors gave in a statement issued on Wednesday morning: “Mrs. Trump has been a longtime client at our New York boutique. She has a keen understanding of what works best for her and her lifestyle.”

The debate had echoes of the one over the pussy-bow blouse Mrs. Trump wore in her first appearance after the surfacing of the infamous “Access Hollywood” audio tape in which Mr. Trump talked to Billy Bush about groping women. At the time, people wondered whether her choice of the Gucci blouse was a pointed statement or a simple coincidence. And then, of course, there was the white Ralph Lauren jumpsuit that Mrs. Trump wore on election night, a not-so-subtle echo of one of Hillary Clinton’s signature looks.

On those two occasions, as on Tuesday night, no answer was evident, but calculated or not, the end result served to create something of an us-versus-them message.

The president’s daughter Ivanka Trump felt a similar sting of backlash for the red off-the-shoulder dress (reportedly designed by Roland Mouret) that she wore on Tuesday evening, with some saying it was more appropriate for a night out than for a high-profile speech.

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