In June Melania Trump visited refugee children on the Mexican border. She wore a jacket with the words "I really do not care - and you?" - and received a lot of criticism. Her spokeswoman said back then, the public would read too much into the First Lady's aesthetic choices: "It's just a jacket, there's no hidden message."

She is wrong. Because you can not not dress. With every grasp in the wardrobe, people - men, women, rich, poor, black, white, - position themselves in reality. They construct a picture of themselves and are simultaneously perceived by others - along role expectations and cultural codes that are aesthetically associated. Fashion is not superficial. It shows the social tension between self-determination and heteronomy directly on the surface.

On Friday, during her trip to Africa through the National Park of Kenya's capital, Nairobi, Trump wore beige trousers, high-shaft boots, a white blouse - and a white pith helmet. A headgear that Europeans often wore in Africa and Asia during the last centuries to protect themselves from the sun and rain; she belongs to the stereotype of the white colonial masters.

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Melania Trump in Africa: Fashion is Political

Already often Melania Trumps outfits was criticized. Sometimes rightly, but often so mercilessly, that it was pretty clear that this was more about proving to her - and in the end therefore always her husband - the next misstep. When Trump set off to Texas in 2017 for stilettos and bomber jackets to visit victims of the tsunami disaster, she was massively criticized for his lack of sensitivity, so they collided with self-determination and alien determination: for the observers, she looked too much like a catwalk. And not enough for shirt-sleeved and functional clothing, which are expected of politicians in such situations - not only out of respect for people who have lost everything in the flood, but also as publicity-effective etiquette, regardless of whether you yourself with the cleanup or Not.

Friendly and interested

At the same time, it was also an outfit that did not adapt because it required the public in certain contexts. Her clothes clearly communicated the life of a former model, whose style is always marked by elegance and expensive high fashion at public appearances - this location in the society did not play over her with rubber boots, but communicated them clearly.

In the case of the tropical helmet, a dysfunction is clearer; Here her own fashionable self-determination touches a long story, which can be painful for many other people: A white woman quotes a historical power relationship that would have privileged her earlier, but today is rightly classified as barbaric: The tropical helmet symbolizes a time in which, among other things, British, Belgians, Dutch, French and Germans exploited entire countries economically, enslaved people and committed genocide - and for a time that is still often ignored in Western historiography.

What she wanted to tell about herself with the colonial hat? On the journey, which leads her to a total of four African countries, there were minor protests against the policies and statements of her husband, but she herself was described as a friendly guest. She also said that she considers the controversial Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh "highly qualified" and that she does not always agree with her husband's tweets.

Asked about her controversial fashion choices, she said, "I wish people would focus on what I'm doing, not what I wear." That sounds like phrasing excuse. Perhaps she wore the helmet out of ignorance, as even today furniture manufacturers uninformed romanticize with "colonial chic" advertise. Maybe she wore it despite better knowledge. In the first case, it would be important to enlighten them.