Arnault and his daughter, Christian Dior CEO Delphine Arnault, were both at Monday’s inauguration. Tech giants, including Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, also in attendance, have openly embraced the Trump administration (significantly, they’ve each donated $1 million to the event), while Kim Kardashian has been public about her affection for Ivanka Trump. Is it possible that the fashion industry could follow suit this time around and become more willing to align itself with the Trump administration?

A dose of pragmatism

For brands like Lippes’s, whose aesthetic tends to the tony and the uptown, it seems like a no-brainer to dress Melania. A representative for Oscar de la Renta—which dressed Second Lady Usha Vance this past weekend for the Vice President’s dinner and Ivanka for a separate event—recently told CNN that the brand is “always honoured when asked to dress the First Lady of the United States”, and that its mission is to “make her look and feel her best regardless of politics”. (Lippes, coincidentally, came up at Oscar de la Renta, where he worked closely with the late designer.)

Designers are understandably wary of alienating their democratic and progressive-leaning community of fellow fashion designers, editors and stylists, but bad press—or no press—does not negate the fact that as a public figure, Trump reaches a robust audience of shoppers who are often not catered to by the fashion establishment. Still, if the comment section under Oscar de la Renta sharing the First Daughter and Second Lady’s looks serves as any indication, consumers will continue to closely police labels and their political alignments.

Back in 2017, when Trump wore that Ralph Lauren ensemble, there was a sliver of hope that things “would not be that bad”; that the Trump-Pence campaign rhetoric would remain just that, rhetoric, and that it would soften and dissipate into the administration. One could have seen the fashion establishment following Lauren’s lead had this been the case.

But it was not, and fashion, if anything, doubled down on its rejection of the Trump family. They never attended a runway show in New York—nor anywhere else—and designers did not visit the White House officially or unofficially like they did in the past year under the Biden administration. Unlike her predecessors, Trump did not directly engage with the fashion establishment philanthropically either. There is now a precedent as we head into the second Trump administration, so the same rules don’t apply. Does this mean that the designers who decide to dress Melania Trump have let go of their values by aligning themselves with her? Not exactly. Should the industry or the public be surprised if and when Trump is embraced by fashion in a different capacity this time around? Not at all.