The most striking thing about the crowd of family and supporters that Donald J. Trump brought onstage with him to make his victory speech on election night was that they looked as if they were attending a cocktail party rather than a historic political gathering.
Instead of painting a picture of the flag in coordinated red, white and blue, the color palette that has dominated every Trump event since the president-elect declared his third candidacy and that Mr. Trump has made as much his signature as the MAGA hat, they painted a picture that, as Mr. Trump said in his speech, was “better, bolder, richer.” One that created its own image of family values.
While Mr. Trump was in his usual blue suit, white shirt and bright red tie, he was flanked on one side by his wife, Melania, in a gray Dior New Look suit, both trussed up and haute. On the other side, his daughter-in-law, Lara, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, was in a sheer black sequined shirt with razor-sharp shoulder pads and wore skinny black pants. Her husband, Eric, wore a glossy silver-blue tie with his suit; farther downstage, Mr. Trump’s oldest granddaughter, Kai, likewise wore sequins.
Also deviating from the red-tie norm in this spotlit moment: JD Vance, the vice president-elect, who wore a lilac tie for the first time since joining the ticket, and Barron Trump, Mr. Trump’s youngest child, who wore a striped one. (Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, wore no tie at all.)
Mr. Vance’s wife, Usha, was next to her husband, smiling up at him in an off-the-shoulder little black dress. Not far away was Ivanka Trump, in only her second appearance to support her father (the first having been at the Republican National Convention), clapping in a sapphire velvet pantsuit, her hair in Veronica Lake waves.
The variety was as unexpected as the decisiveness of Mr. Trump’s victory, given the way assorted allies and supplicants have adopted the unofficial Trump uniform to telegraph their fealty to the president-elect.
Indeed, dress has become such a widely accepted signifier of Trump allegiance, in part because of Mr. Trump’s own focus on appearance, that at the beginning of the evening, X was flooded with posts picturing Jill Biden voting in a red pantsuit. The theories were that it was a secret code revealing that Dr. Biden had voted for Mr. Trump. (Nobody has offered evidence to support that idea.)
Not that Republicans were alone in reading the clothing tea leaves. A number of X users voiced only slightly self-mocking superstitions over the fact that MSNBC’s “map daddy,” Steve Kornacki, had swapped the khaki pants that were a trademark during the 2020 election for a darker pair, worrying that it was a sign of an upset to come.
All of which simply underscores the fact that in such history-making moments, the details of dress really do matter.
But while there was some of the usual Trump semiology in the pageant that took place in the wee hours of Wednesday morning — Kimberly Guilfoyle in a tight red dress, Tiffany Trump in a flowing white one — this was unlike the last time the whole Trump family was onstage together, on the final evening of the Republican convention, when it was a vision in red, white and blue. Perhaps the map had gone so red, the family did not need to.
In offering a different image on the night of Mr. Trump’s return to power, his supporting cast offered a reflection of another side of the promise Mr. Trump dangled: a dress code of a different kind. A portrait, really, that centered classic gender roles, or at least the appearance of classic gender roles, with women in high heels, decorative clothing and flowing Miss Universe locks — and men in suits. A gauzy portrait of the fancier, more sparkly time Mr. Trump was selling, as much as his golden sneakers, superhero NFTs and diamond watches.
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