Milestones in Feminism: The question is not what did the woman do, but what did the woman wear.

The retrogression is not really Trump's. It's Breitbart's. Trump is just passing along the publicity received by his wife:

Breitbart's opinion on aesthetics is worthless. Look what an ugly mess it is:

That's my screenshot from the Breitbart article.

Readers are expected to look past the drink this/don't drink this/robot puppy/robot bunny advertising and read what looks like a press release: "Melania Trump chose a gray textured wool bar jacket from Dior for the historic occasion, pairing it with a matching gray textured wool skirt, as well as a thin black leather belt from Dior and patent leather stilettos from Christian Louboutin."

A "bar jacket," I was curious enough to learn, is the kind of jacket Christian Dior thought perfect for women drinking cocktails in the afternoon at the bar at the Plaza Athénée hotel in in 1947. Did they have "bladder issues"? Did they dream of electric rabbits?

How dare they put a stereotypically old woman sitting on a toilet right next to the news of the First Lady's appearance at the U.N. doing whatever it was she was doing while wearing some very specific items of clothing!

70 years ago today, Christian Dior unveiled what was called "The New Look."

Wikipedia:

[T]he new collection went down in fashion history as the "New Look" after the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar Carmel Snow exclaimed, "It's such a new look!... It’s quite a revolution, dear Christian!"... The silhouette was characterised by a small, nipped-in waist and a full skirt falling below mid-calf length, which emphasised the bust and hips... The collection overall showcased more stereotypically feminine designs in contrast to the popular fashions of wartime...



The New Look was welcomed in western Europe as a refreshing antidote to the austerity of wartime and de-feminizing uniforms....

Not everyone was pleased with the New Look, however. Some considered the amount of material to be wasteful, especially after years of cloth rationing. Feminists in particular were outraged, feeling that these corseted designs were restrictive and regressive, and that they took away a woman's independence.

Fellow designer Coco Chanel remarked, "Only a man who never was intimate with a woman could design something that uncomfortable."

It's just by chance that Coco Chanel came up a second time in my blogging this morning. The first appearance is here, as I discuss Trump's remarks about how phony he'd look with a dog. There was an old Chanel quote that sprang to mind. This Chanel quote exemplifies the homophobia that used to be aimed at fashion designers. So often, when I was growing up in the 1960s, I heard the older generation opine that the reason this or that new fashion looked horrible was because fashion designers, being gay, hated women.

The Chanel quote isn't so much about hate as ignorance, as if having sex with a woman — presumably a naked woman — would educate a man about what she'd find comfortable as she does the things she does with clothes on. Or maybe not. I can see how to get Chanel off the hook. Maybe she meant that a man who spends time living with a flesh-and-blood woman would think about her various real-life activities, and a man who dealt only with fashion models has a more static or theatrical vision.