Read more: Melania Trump's post-presidency outfit transformation is a whole mood. The former first lady, who also wore a pantsuit in her official White House portrait, may have worn the corporate-inspired silhouette to show that she means business, stylist Melissa Garcia previously told "Today.
Insider's Ellen Cranley also pointed out that according to Kate Bennett's book, " Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography ," the former first lady's menswear outfits may have had something to do with Bennett's "theory that when the Trumps are unhappy with each other, Melania wears menswear — because Trump notoriously likes to see women in tight, short, ubersexy and feminine dresses. This wasn't the first year that congresspeople made a statement in all-white outfits. In , the monochromatic wave of suffragette white that filled the US Capitol during Trump's State of the Union remarks was even more symbolic, as a record number of women were sworn into Congress that January.
For example, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted at the time: "I wore all-white today to honor the women who paved the path before me, and for all the women yet to come. From suffragettes to Shirley Chisholm, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the mothers of the movement.
Insider's Eliza Relman reported that at least one Republican lawmaker joined in on wearing white to the address. When she was sworn into the House of Representatives in January , Ocasio-Cortez celebrated her heritage and paid homage to female political figures who came before her. She wore an all-white suit — thought to be a nod to the suffragists — as well as hoop earrings and red lipstick, which she later said were inspired by Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a tweet the day after being sworn in that when Sotomayor was in the process of being confirmed to the Supreme Court in , she was advised to wear neutral nail polish "to avoid scrutiny," but she wore red polish instead. The "I really don't care, do u? The first lady's visit took place amid controversy over President Trump's " zero-tolerance " immigration policy. People called the message on Melania's jacket insensitive, and others suggested it could have been an intentional political move to show that she would continue to defy what's expected of her as first lady.
Melania later said in an ABC News interview that the jacket was "kind of a message. You could criticize whatever you want to say. But it will not stop me to do what I feel is right. Ted Yoho of Florida for verbally accosting her outside the steps of Capitol Hill and calling her a "fing b," an exchange that was first reported by The Hill.
Ocasio-Cortez wore a scarlet-red blazer and matching lipstick when she took the floor to respond to Yoho's speech. She later told Vanity Fair that she "had a little war paint on that day. Kate Haulman, an associate professor at American University who teaches early North American and US history as well as women's and gender history, previously told Insider that she thought Ocasio-Cortez seemed to reclaim the color red.
I thought it was a real statement. In September , the now-first lady shared a message about the civic duty of voting. She not only set an example by casting her own ballot — but she also wore a pair of over-the-knee Stuart Weitzman boots with the word "Vote" etched down the calf.
She was pictured wearing the shoes while leaving the Delaware State Building in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden's Stuart Weitzman boots were made in partnership with the nonprofit I am a voter , and profits from the sales of the limited-edition boots were donated to the organization. Harris gave her first speech as the nation's first female, Black, and South Asian vice president-elect wearing an all-white suit from the female-founded brand Carolina Herrera.
The blouse style has become a symbol of female empowerment of sorts. The "pussy bow" style rose to popularity in the '80s when more American women began taking on executive positions in corporate environments and led to the creation of new, feminine versions of clothes that were adapted from menswear, according to Quartz. Harris' outfit was also an example of monochromatic dressing, which often signifies "celebration in the Black community," according to a tweet from costume historian Shelby Ivey Christie.
Read more: 9 of Vice President Kamala Harris' best style moments. Pelosi made a statement by recycling a dark-colored outfit in January to mark Trump's second impeachment. When the House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump in for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in , Pelosi wore a dark-colored dress with a gold necklace.
She also wore a brooch shaped like the mace of the House of Representatives. Her office confirmed to MSNBC that she wore the same ensemble with a face mask — minus the brooch — in January while impeaching Trump a second time for " incitement of insurrection. Harris' outfit was not only her way of shining a light on American designers of color, but the vibrant purple hue was thought to be symbolic, too. Her choice to wear purple may have been a nod to the suffragists, as it's also one of the colors of the National Woman's Party , an American suffrage organization.
The color of Harris' outfit could have also been a nod to bipartisanship, as purple is the combination of red representing the Republican party and blue symbolic of the Democratic party.
Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren also wore purple on Inauguration Day. Additionally, purple was one of the colors, along with red and yellow, that Harris used in her presidential campaign.
Harris' campaign previously confirmed that the color scheme was inspired by those of Shirley Chisholm's presidential campaign. Markarian's designer, Alexandra O'Neill, told Insider that Biden's outfit was meant to communicate a message of "trust, confidence, and stability.
O'Neill also said that Biden's choice to wear an outfit from an emerging designer at the inauguration ceremony shows that the first lady "recognizes the power and impact" her style statements can have on up-and-coming brands.
The rhinestone-studded outerwear was more than a fashion choice. JFK had been assassinated, and the world stood still in shock. Two years later, after her husband, Lyndon B.
Johnson, was elected in , a much-publicized ceremony and ball took place. For the swearing-in event, she wore a red wool dress and matching hat. At the gala, a luxuriously yellow silk-satin coat trimmed with chocolaty sable topped a short-sleeve dress that only looked simple in its construction. Pleats and a clever V-bodice added architecture to the unadorned gown, designed by John Moore.
In her true sensible fashion, Lady Bird opted for something she felt had a timeless appeal. She was aware her dress would be on display for years to come and made a choice she felt would age well. In her red-wool ensemble, the moment marked the first time a first lady held the bible during the presidential oath of office, and the duty was to symbolize her own part in the political position.
By the time Pat Nixon became first lady, she had already been second lady during the Eisenhower administration and was familiar with what the role required. In her husband, Richard Nixon, was sworn in, and to the ceremony she wore a fuschia-colored, double-breasted coat by Jay Sarnoff Custom Couture, an American label. She paired it with a fur stole and hat. To the ball, it would be a mimosa silk-satin gown designed by Karen Stark for Harvey Berin. The dress was an elegant column of satin with a beaded waist in the same style as a cropped jacket worn with it.
Her shoes by Herbert Levine were monogrammed at the right instep. At the gala, she wore a long-sleeve turquoise gown covered in crystal details by Adele Simpson. There were no formal inauguration festivities, but at the swearing-in ceremony, she wore a very s dress suit of powder blue.
Its skirt was ladylike and A-line, and the matching jacket was edged in white piping. Rosalynn Carter was a one-term first lady who opted to minimize her role as hostess at the White House, instead focusing on diplomacy. Her no-nonsense approach carried over into her wardrobe. At the inaugural ball in , she wore a dress the public had already seen before. For the second time around, Rosalynn did refresh the look with a new coat.
The original dress, designed by Mary Matise for Jimmae, featured billowing chiffon sleeves in icy blue with a gold-embroidered bodice. A Hollywood figure before becoming first lady, Nancy Reagan understood what it meant to be in the public eye. It was designed by Adolfo. For the ball, she wore James Galanos—she was a repeated patron of the American couturier and cemented his status as an in-demand dressmaker.
The first gown was a one-shoulder, heavily beaded as was the Galanos way dress with a lace overlay. Once again, she wore Adolfo for the ceremony and Galanos for the ball. For the second time around, the evening dress and jacket had a demure appeal.
At the inauguration ceremony of George H. Bush, she wore a deep turquoise coat designed by Bill Blass and paired it with a multistrand pearl necklace. That night, she wore a wonderful royal blue gown by Arnold Scaasi, constructed in velvet at the bodice and sleeves with a draped satin skirt. Before her time in pantsuits as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton more often wore dresses and skirts as first lady. She topped the look with a cadet blue velour, off-the-face hat by Darcy Creech.
The gown, designed by Sarah Phillips, was a slinky, violet-beaded lace sheath dress with an iridescent blue velvet silk mousseline overskirt for added volume. At the swearing-in ceremony, Hillary wore his cheerful coral-colored dress and coat set in wool melton. For the ball, she dazzled in a high-neck, long-sleeve embroidered tulle dress in ivory metallics.
In terms of style - and again, I am no expert at all, or even an astute observer. I also know that Mrs. Truman was actually criticized for wearing no variations from her skirts in the mid's that were measured a certain length from the floor with matching shorter-sleeved jackets in navy blue, grey and black only. Mamie Eisenhower wore the same suit style but in lighter colors. Jacqueline Kennedy updated this slightly with eye-popping monochromatic colors for the new technology of color television.
Her famous pink suit worn when the president was assassinated is the most famous example of this. Tying this together, I know that Mrs. Reagan, and other women of power or married to powerful men in Washington of the 's, were shown to be wearing the same type of suit as Mrs.
Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. So, with her skirts that never showed more than her ankles and, as you say "asymmetrical lines", Edith Wilson seems more of person who followed the current vogue of her era rather than set a tradition, consciously or unconsciously.
Please take all of that with the over-riding fact that I am not in any way an expert on this aspect of First Ladies except as it turned up as a cultural statement for a particular era or, mostly, had a political impact or repercussion. I think this may be a really new field of study within the still-new study of First Ladies. All too often, I believe, First Ladies have been reduced to "fashion mannequins" thus making them of interest to a limited audience; I think your perspective on the subject can give it a genuine relevancy and widen its interest.
With regard to First Ladies' most outrageous outfits, there are several instances of First Ladies' wardrobes causing controversy. One prime example is a story about Ida McKinley scandalizing in Turkish pants outfits, but this is not based in fact.
I have done perhaps more extensive research on her whole life in preparation for what will eventually be published as the first full-length biography of her life and nowhere is there any claim of accuracy - and obviously no documentation - on her wearing these pants. Perhaps it was done as a satire - I know that H. Mencken famously cracked that Millard Fillmore's only accomplishment was installing the first White House bathtub, and for almost 80 years now, it still circulates as "fact"!
Below are several other outlandish stories involving fashions of the First Ladies. I do recall that early in her husband's tenure as president, Mrs. Reagan wore black knickers with a dress, which generated lot of controversy, but I haven't done further research on it - though I seem to remember a story about it at the time in the Washington Post.
Jackie Kennedy wore a leopard coat that is credited, unfortunately, with setting off a trend that seriously depleted the worldwide leopard population. One of the women's magazines, I think it was Ladies Home Journal, often had a big cover story and profile of an incumbent First Lady after she'd been there for a few years and often accompanied by a spread of them in new styles, etc. This is where Pat Nixon first appeared wearing pants - the first First Lady to do so. I seem to recall that it was an issue in the re-election year of her husband, which would be There is also a great story of how Frances Cleveland unwittingly expedited the demise of the bustle dress in either the late 's or mid's she was First Lady from June to March - she married the incumbent President in the White House and he was defeated for re-election - and then returned from March to March when he came back to defeat Harrison in their second face-off election and served a second full, though non-consecutive term.
In any event, as the young bride of a President and then as a young mother of three young daughters one of whom was the only child of a President actually born in the White House she was enormously popular and her clothing style was copied by many other women.
Two reporters in Washington during the summer apparently were hard-pressed for a breaking-news story and completely made up the claim that Mrs. Cleveland didn't like the bustle and would no longer wear it when the forthcoming social season began that fall. The story moved fast - and women by the thousands apparently abandoned the bustle too. Along those lines, Frances Cleveland wore many gowns that showed off her bare neck, shoulders and arms - sleeveless I think is the right term.
It alarmed the Women's Christian Temperance Union and they actually drew up and had their various branches copy a petition, then sought to get all its members to sign it, asking the First Lady to stop wearing these dresses because it corrupted the morals of young women who copied her. She kept wearing them. Mary Lincoln liked to wear ball gowns with very long trains but also without shoulders and President Lincoln once remarked that he thought she needed "a little less tail and little more neck" instead.
She was also known for wearing elaborate head-dresses of multiple roses, and in a letter to his wife, one Senator described Mrs. Lincoln critically, as wearing a "flower-pot" on her head. Eleanor Roosevelt was famous for sometimes running from one task to another, from private life to a public event at the White House, and on occasion shocked people by showing up wearing her hair net or a white head scarf tied in her hair which looked like a rag of sorts.
I cannot recall the specific person who either stated or wrote about Julia Grant who wore the heavily beaded, embroidered, laced, tasseled and ribboned gowns of the Victorian era, but she was sarcastically described as looking like a piece of a furniture set. In contrast, her successor, the highly moralistic Lucy Hayes wore clothes that covered her entirely to her wrists and neck, and wore her hair simply parted in the center with nothing but a Spanish comb and reporter Mary Clemmer Ames mused whether the "world of Vanity Fair" would "paint and powder" her image in magazines - and compared her beatific expression and simple style to the Mother of Christ.
Finally, there is a famous story which Dolley Madison's nieces enjoyed telling about her. As a former Quaker, Dolley Madison had been raised wearing the modest clothes and bonnets in somber colors which covered her face and body, intended not to draw but deflect attention from her. Once she left the faith, she began dressing in the most current styles of her era, including the low-cut flimsy dresses of the Napoleonic Era.
When, at the White House, she recognized one of the members of the public who attended her weekly open house reception as being a fellow - and former - member of her Quaker meetinghouse, she exclaimed to him, looking at his bare head - "Brother, where is thy broadbrim [hat]?
The whole issue of how much skin is "socially acceptable" to show in public by First Ladies has been ongoing from almost the start of the presidency. When Dolley Madison famously wore her low-cut dresses that showed off her shoulders and the top of her bosom, former First Lady Abigail Adams snidely remarked in a private letter that Mrs. Madison looked like "a nursing mother. She looked at his head and saw he was no longer wearing the large black hat that Quaker men traditionally did like the fellow on the Quaker Oats box.
Some forty-five years later, when Harriet Lane - the niece and White House hostess of the bachelor President James Buchanan and the first to be called "First Lady" popularized what was called the "low-neck lace bertha" it set off something of a popular style - yet when her immediate successor Mary Lincoln wore shoulderless, armless dresses, she was criticized as "showing off her bosom.
When Frances Cleveland, the 21 year old bride of President Cleveland, wore gowns without sleeves and showed off her shoulders, the Women's Christian Temperance Union circulated a petition pleading for her to cover up her skin because she was a bad influence on the morals of young American girls.
In the Twenties, Florence Harding wore some evening gowns that bared her shoulders - despite her being 60 years old - keeping current with the vogue of the Jazz Age, but she also carried capes and wraps so she could cover up when she wanted to. Grace Coolidge frequently wore evening gowns in the flapper style - without sleeves. She is wearing a sleeveless red dress in her White House portrait - which you can find online at the White House.
Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower sported what was then called 'the new look" of the post-war era and frequently wore shoulderless and sleeveless evening gowns - and received no criticism or even snide remarks, despite being in their late 50's and early 60's.
Mamie Eisenhower also sported sleeveless dresses at the end of her tenure, in the late 50's and early Sixties, reflecting the newer style for women's clothes - and, of course, her successor Jackie Kennedy helped to widely popularize this style.
Jackie Kennedy also wore numerous evening gowns in bright and pastel colors that were sleeveless and shoulderless. In recent years, Nancy Reagan often wore sleeveless and shoulderless evening gowns to state dinners, but during the daytime dressed more formally and covered.
My area of expertise on First Ladies is focused largely on their political impact, speeches, media relations, policy interests and symbolism. I only have the most limited scholarship on what they wore.
However, there are some individual presidential spouses I have conducted indepth research on of whom I've written full-length biographies and there is some information I do know. Probably the best possible source on Jacqueline Kennedy will be the catalogues of her personal items that were sold at the famous Sotheby's auction in Perhaps the John F.
Kennedy Library in Boston has a copy: not only detailed descriptions but color illustrations of the items. In doing some general research, I also find items that are now in the museum collections of various presidential libraries and museums: a locket with a miniature painting I can't make out the scene given by her husband and worn by Abigail Adams during the long years of their separation while he was serving as a diplomat following his years in the Second Continental Congress.
Julia Tyler, widowed for nearly three decades, wore a painted miniature of her husband, clasped at her throat. As First Lady, she also wore a pearl and diamond string of some kind as a "diadem", apparently a type of headband. You can actually see her wearing it in her official White House portrait. Sarah Polk, widowed for nearly a half a century, always wore an ivory carved cameo of her husband. Mary Lincoln seemed especially fond of a black onyx set of earrings, bracelet, ring, necklace, and pin it seems to be set with diamonds as well which she was actually photographed wearing for pictures she gave permission to be released to the public.
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