Is Melania Trump Consciously Channelling Jackie Kennedy?
The current first lady is clearly a fan of Kennedy's iconic style.
It didn't take long for the comparisons to start. Just minutes after Melania Trump stepped out in a powder blue dress with a matching jacket and gloves at her husband's inauguration, tweets and headlines began pointing out that America's newest first lady appeared to be channeling one of its most beloved: Jackie Kennedy.
During Donald Trump's inaugural foreign trip as president, Melania mimicked Jackie's style yet again.
In Saudia Arabia, the first lady wore a wide, statement-making belt, not unlike the one Jackie Kennedy wore to the Metropolitan Opera in 1967.
When meeting with Pope Francis in May, Melania adhered the Vatican dress code, wearing all black and covering her head with the traditional mantilla or lace veil, as did Jackie during her meeting with Pope Paul VI in 1966.
Back in February, while visiting Mar-a-Lago with President Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and his wife Akie Abe, Melania stepped off the plane at Palm Beach International Airport on Friday, wearing statement sunglasses, wide-legged white trousers, and a black button-down, nearly the exact same outfit Jackie Kennedy wore to the West Palm Beach Airport in 1973. Clearly, this wasn't a coincidence.
Both critics and supporters of the President seem to bemoan these comparisons, but the first lady may be modeling herself after her famous predecessor in more ways than just the sartorial. As Kennedy did, Trump has a young son and she puts the responsibility of being a mother before her role as First Lady. Kennedy often passed off her duties to Second Lady Lady Bird Johnson, and while Trump remains in New York for the time being, she seems to be sharing some of her responsibilities with her step-daughter, Ivanka.
As Kate Andersen Brower, author of First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies, pointed out Trump once said, "I am a full-time mom; that is my first job. The most important job ever." It's a sentiment akin to Jackie's famous, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much."
These parallels shouldn't be so surprising. After all, when asked in 1999 about what kind of First Lady she'd be if her husband were President, Trump said, "I would be very traditional. Like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy. I would support him."
