January 9, 2025

"At former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral... Melania Trump... opted... for... an extra-wide, pilgrim-esque collar printed with images of a Renaissance sculpture of a kissing couple...."

"Melania doesn’t usually bake big ideas into her fashion choices...  The one time Melania tried to send a message with her outfit — you know, when she wore that 'I Really Don’t Care, Do U?' jacket to visit a migrant children’s shelter — it backfired. In her 2024 memoir, she wrote that her jacket’s message was intended as a kiss-off to the media, not the migrant children.... Was this funeral ensemble a not-so-subtle statement about the importance of love and unity in a divided nation? Given her stilted body language as her husband giggled with Barack Obama, probably not. (No one gives off an air of 'I’d rather be anywhere else' like Melania.)..."

From "What’s Up With Melania’s Collar?" (New York Magazine).

What does it mean? Obviously, it's an expression of a desire for love. But NY Magazine doesn't want to give her that — not to credit her with desiring love for the world and certainly not to fulfill any desire she might have to receive love. She will get no love from New York Magazine, where she will always be seen as icy, even if she is wearing a photograph of kissing lovers around her neck. 

We're told the garment is "Pierpaolo Piccioli-era Valentino, from a collaboration he released with Japanese designer Jun Takahashi of Undercover in 2019." I'd like to  know what "Renaissance sculpture" this is. I see from a 2019 fashion report that it's "a 19th-century neoclassical sculpture." I ask Grok for help and I am told, to my amazement, that it is "The Kiss" by Auguste Rodin! That's a very famous sculpture. I would expect it to be referred to by name. Rodin is not Renaissance or even neoclassical. But I will note that in Rodin's "Kiss," both the man's arms hang down around the woman's hips and do not appear near the neck, as I think I'm seeing in the photograph of Melania's collar. Of course, the Valentino image could have involved some chopping and repositioning. In short, I don't know the source of the image.

33 comments:

wendybar said...

marquemywords
@MARQUEMYWORD
Melania's Pilgrim dress screams "witchhunt". That's what the odious group of people have been engaged in for years against the Trump family. Melania's look conjures up visions of an innocent woman about to be burned at the stake and highlights the hypocrisy and harshness of that evil society. She behaved as stoically as any unhappy heroine ever has. I just love Melania.
2:36 PM · Jan 9, 2025

J2 said...

The manner in which it displays on the collar renders it abstract

Wince said...

Doesn't somebody, somewhere actually have to wear the stuff haute couture designers pump-out every year?

She should have gone with the image of Hunter Biden pulling the prostitute's hair from behind doggie style.

Wince said...

Disappearing comment again.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Wednesday Addams never looked so good.

Aggie said...

They were trying so hard to be snotty they forgot to consult their Fact Checkers. It's more like a Puritan collar than a Pilgrim one, and the Puritans were the ones burning the witches in Salem; there's so much more to criticize if they compare Melania to the Puritans. A missed opportunity. And after all, considering the past 4 years of drapery & upholstery fashion choices, almost anything is an improvement. She could have worn a bowling shirt and looked better.

Breezy said...

We’d be most fortunate if the most pressing issue is what Melania is wearing.

Jaq said...

On the one hand, they hate her, on the other hand, they get to write about high fashion again, rather than whatever off the rack at Target outfit that "Dr Jill" was wearing.

Jaq said...

It does look like something that Elaine would wear in Seinfeld.

Big Mike said...

Assumes without evidence Melania is even trying to send a message.

Ampersand said...

The collar is a subtle commentary upon Carter's Calvinistic puritanical political masochism. Carter never saw a criticism of America that he didn't like. We were never good enough for him, despite his smarmy claim that he would aspire to be as good a President as the American people were as a polity.

Former Illinois resident said...

Melania has my sympathies. She didn't sign-up for this when she became Trump's 3rd wife, but she's stoically bearing that burden of constant national scrutiny and ruthless political warfare. She should win the next Nobel Peace prize.

Rabel said...

Nobody "burned" witches in Salem. They hanged them. Show some respect for Professor Althouse's ancestors.

Big Mike said...

I'd like to know what "Renaissance sculpture" this is. I see from a 2019 fashion report that it's "a 19th-century neoclassical sculpture." I ask Grok for help and I am told, to my amazement, that it is "The Kiss" by Auguste Rodin!

@Althouse, you are assuming that a modern journalist could place the Renaissance within a century of when it occurred. If you asked whoever wrote this article who “Rodin” was they’d babble something about a monster in a Godzilla movie. Don’t you remember what Ben Rhodes had to say about modern journalists?

Iman said...

Fuck teh Mean Girls @the Yew Norker!

Dr Weevil said...

If she looked rather grim at the funeral, it's unlikely to have had anything to do with her attitude towards anyone else in the room, including her husband. Her mother died a year ago today.

Birches said...

I thought she looked adequately somber for a funeral and I liked the collar quite a bit. A way to distinguish without being showy.

Aggie said...

Quite right ! Er..... which ones were her ancestors?

Just an old country lawyer said...

Exactly the kind of smug combination of pettiness and malignancy, leavened by abject ignorance, that one would expect from the national press.

BUMBLE BEE said...

She looked just fine. Hilary's eyebags were visible at howitzer range.

Rabel said...

Cotton Mather.

Rosalyn C. said...

The image for me suggested the romantic notion of Jimmy and Rosalynn being reunited in heaven. They were partners devoted to each other for a very long time, separated for a short time, and now together again.

Narayanan said...

iow
'Abelard and Heloise' without age difference!

Rabel said...

It's just an image based loosely on the sculpture and used on a line of fashion togs.

Not that I know Rodin from Rodan but I have the internet. Although, I was surprised to see that Rodin was so recent, late 1800's.

Rodan began his career in the Mesozoic era.

Rabel said...

And speaking of the internet, it's gotten a hold of the funeral video.
Some humorous alterations are in development.

tpceltus said...

Dr. Weevil, I also read that Melania’s mother died one year ago today. I suspect she attended today, in part, out of respect to both the late President as well as his wife. As I recall, Rosalyn told her family to call Melania specifically to let her know the invitation to her (Rosalyn’s) funeral was sincere and she had hoped Melania would accept the invitation.

Nice said...

The Seating Chart was hilarious. Why was Doug Emhoff elevated with a front and center position, above Obama and Trump? I find it hard to believe that they couldn't just do a single wide row.

EAB said...

At least she was there…

rhhardin said...

Melania strikes me as high maintenance mostly, and her messages are better ignored. Trump's choice in women, not mine. He's her ticket to important places.

Michelle Obama is also high maintenance but in a different way. It's important to her that you think that she's smart, which would be wearing.

RCOCEAN II said...

One of our most beautiful, apoltiical, and fashinonable 1st ladies has to be portrayed in the a bad light. After all, she's Mrs. Trump. Maybe her lack of smiles and cartwheels had to do with the fact that its a funeral. And she doesnt really like the other Ex-POTUS and the DC crowd that tried to destroy her and Donald. Or sat by with cruel neutrality like the Bushes.

I can see by the picture the collar has the kissing couple on one side, but I couldn't make out the other side. Is it the same thing? Anyway the outfit looks chic and is fine. And New York Magazine can't understand what she meant by "I don't care, do U?" Gosh, it was all so confusing. Despite it being obvious to everyone.

Finally, would people shut up about New England witches. The remakable thing about 17th Century New England isn't that they hanged a few witches, its that they hanged so few of them compared to England and Europe. Its like rattling on about USA slavery, when it so much more prevelent and worse in other parts of the globe.

Rusty said...

Meh.

Saint Croix said...

Sexy!

She's cold on the outside and hot on the inside.

My favorite first lady, by a landslide.

wendybar said...

I agree with Dr. Weevil. Losing your mother is hard, and the year anniversary isn't any easier when you are at a public funeral with everyone looking at you.