The Ball Gowns of Trump’s New ‘Golden Age’
The New York Times
Melania and Ivanka Trump and Usha Vance wore a pastiche of bygone eras — perhaps a glimpse of what they hope the future looks like.
What does the new “golden age,” the one President Donald J. Trump declared again and again in his inaugural speeches was about to dawn, look like?
For a preview, cast your eye to the trio of official inaugural balls held on Monday night. They were the real-life equivalent of a trailer for a remake of “The Gilded Age”: a series of champagne celebrations in which the main characters took center stage in glittering costumes that called to mind eras gone by to create a pastiche of aspiration. One set to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
If members of the Trump and Vance families weren’t exactly wearing 24-karat frocks, they were at least wearing jewel tones.
Melania Trump, for example, offered a modern update to the classic column, courtesy of a collaboration with Hervé Pierre, the designer and stylist with whom she has worked since the first Trump inauguration, and whose dress this time bore a notable resemblance to her 2017 gown.
For Trump 1.0, she wore an off-the-shoulder white gazar dress of his design with a single ruffle tracing a curve down her body. For 2.0, it was a strapless, pearl-toned, crepe dress with a black ribbon tracing an Art Deco squiggle down her body — along with a very turn-of-the-century black choker affixed with a diamond pin. As a whole, it elegantly called to mind the Parthenon, Erté and a question mark, all at once.
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