Melania's white pantsuit — at the SOTU — "seemed to be about as subtle a slap in the face as could be contained in a garment."

According to Vanessa Friedman at the NYT in "Melania Trump and the Case of the White Pantsuit."

The theory is that Hillary Clinton somehow owns the symbolism of the white pantsuit and that it is "sartorial shorthand for both the suffragists and contemporary women’s empowerment and something of an anti-Trump uniform" and it was just worn at the Grammys by "the women gathered behind Kesha."

When I first read this I thought the unsubtle slap was to the face of liberal women, but I now I see that it was unsubtle in the other direction! That's some subtle unsubtlety. Friedman reads Melania's pantsuit as symbolic violence against Trump, for his true/fake consorting with a porn star.

But even Friedman doubts the clear meaning of the symbolism. Maybe Melania just wanted to do the opposite of what the Democratic Party women were doing on SOTU — wearing black. They were copying the protest motif of the actresses at the Golden Globes (even though last year, they'd worn white to Trump's address to a joint session of Congress).

I'd say the white looked great. Melania stood out, and it expressed optimism and cheer — especially effective when Democrats were wearing black and going out of their way to look grumpy.