Vogue magazine couldn’t contain its anti-Trump bias in a recent article trashing the First Lady. The catty piece by fashion writer Hannah Jackson had nothing nice to say about Melania Trump’s official portrait, declaring that she “looked more like a freelance magician than a public servant.”
The article stuck out like a sore thumb as a “must read” in a publication that gushes over practically everyone else in the fashion world, including a trans-woman who blamed her trouble getting a passport on Trump’s Executive Order recognizing only two sexes.
“The sober black-and-white photograph by Régine Mahaux features Trump, the Washington Monument towering over her shoulder, resting her fingers on a reflective black desk and staring down the camera as if to say, ‘You’re fired.’” Jackson wrote. “Indeed, Trump looked more like she was guest starring on an episode of The Apprentice than assuming the role of first lady of the United States.”
The former model sports a black Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo jacket with satin-trimmed lapels over a white button-up, which she paired with a Ralph Lauren cummerbund and trousers. The look “certainly didn’t help the boardroom pastiche,” Jackson oozed, adding, “It’s perhaps unsurprising that a woman who lived in a gold-encrusted penthouse, whose fame is so intertwined with a reality-television empire, would refuse to abandon theatrics—even when faced with 248 years of tradition.”
Jackson noted that the photograph is noticeably more toned down than Melania’s 2017 White House portrait, which she also trashed. “Unlike the new black-and-white image, Trump’s first portrait was in color, featuring the first lady—face airbrushed into oblivion—wide-eyed, smiling with a hint of teeth, her arms crossed to display a massive diamond wedding ring.” She busts on Melania’s jewelry choices as well, carping: “This time, while the portrait remains more subdued, the Trumps are displaying wealth not through diamond rings but through the coterie of tech CEOs who sat in the front row at the 2025 inauguration, whose combined net worth was over a trillion dollars.”
The Vogue writer also dredged up some of her feelings about the First Lady’s previous fashion choices, dripping: “In 2018, en route to visit children (some of whom were separated from their parents by the Trump administration) held in a migrant detention center in McAllen, Texas, the first lady wore a Zara jacket with the message, ‘I Really Don’t Care, Do U?’ emblazoned on the back.” She also revisited 2016 to trash Mrs. Trump for wearing a pink pussy-bow blouse to a debate between her husband and Hillary Clinton.
“Now, attempting a no-nonsense businesswoman approach in her situationally inappropriate tuxedo, it seems that Melania Trump still struggles with sartorial messaging,” Jackson chirped from her Brooklyn bunker.
Previously media darlings, the Trumps were relentlessly scorned by the press the moment he announced for president in 2015 and dared to question the status quo. The vitriol rose to such a level that their detractors were described as being afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. Melania messaging that she doesn’t really care about what they say sent them off on a tizzy that reverberates today now that the pair is back in the White House.