Our politics here are no secret: We do not support Trump, and we proudly voted for Biden-Harris. So we understand why some of our readers would watch us avoid covering Melania Trump’s clothes for four years, and call it pettiness because suddenly we’re writing about the vice president-elect.
But we are not about to miss this massive moment just to avoid that label. Our pals Tom and Lorenzo recently tweeted, in the context of a larger discussion, that they were inspired to write about Michelle Obama because of both the historic nature of being the first Black FLOTUS, and the intelligent way in which she chose dresses and designers. That’s exactly why we want to feature Kamala today, and hopefully beyond. There are a lot of thrilling things about finally having a woman in the vice presidency, and one of them is whether she — as have so many before her, and as I firmly believe she is doing here — will talk to us through fashion.
As for Dr. Biden, we haven’t discussed that yet, although she’s in this post because she’s in a group shot. I am very curious to see what Dr. Biden does, because a) she is the first FLOTUS to continue at her job while in the White House, and b) she has been Second Lady, and wonder whether time or a new title will change anything about her approach. That’s an angle I appreciate. We were late to Michelle Obama, but I wish we had written about her sooner, because she really launched designers like Jason Wu into the popular consciousness. Melania didn’t do that — in truth she may not have had the option, if the rumors are true that many of them weren’t willing to outfit her — so whatever Dr. Biden does may count as messaging on that front as well.
But you know what? I also like what I know of Jill Biden, and I don’t feel that way about Melania. (Besides which, the only time Melania seemed to want to talk to us through clothes, it was either a vile statement or vile timing, or both, and we didn’t want to give that any air.) If this website and its comments are akin to our living room, we simply don’t want to invite her inside, especially when there are so many other online living rooms she and her husband inhabit.
So, yeah, we skipped the Trumps, and I’m good with it. Will we skip Dr. Biden? I don’t know. But we’re not about to skip out on Madam Vice President. Hail to the history-maker.
