Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour dissed first lady Melania Trump while discussing how fashion is used in politics.
Wintour declined to discuss the current first lady when asked by the Economist’s Anne McElvoy, instead pivoting to Trump’s predecessor Michelle Obama.
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“[Trump] I think, very consciously, wanted to see herself as an ambassador for British fashion, in this case, or a transatlantic ambassador,” McElvoy said about the first lady’s attire during her state visit to the United Kingdom last month. “Do you value that?”
“Well, I think first lady Michelle Obama really was so incredible in every decision she made about fashion,” Wintour replied. “She supported young American designers. She supported designers, indeed, from all over the world. She was the best ambassador that this country could possibly have in many ways, obviously, way beyond fashion.”
“But she’s not first lady now,” McElvoy said. “So what about the one you’ve got now?”
“To me, [Obama] is the example that I admire,” Wintour said.
Which first lady wore the role best? Anna Wintour talks politics and fashion with @AnneMcElvoy on “The Economist asks” podcast https://t.co/0mHlLjtf06 pic.twitter.com/gIoUpd3teo
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 21, 2019
Melania is the only recent first lady to not grace the cover of Vogue while in the White House. Hillary Clinton was the first presidential spouse to make the cover and Obama made the cover three times while she was in the White House.
Melania, a former model, was on the cover of Vogue in 2005, just after she married President Trump.
“To be on the cover of Vogue doesn’t define Mrs. Trump, she’s been there, done that long before she was first lady,” Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in April.
“Her role as first lady of the United States and all that she does is much more important than some superficial photoshoot and cover,” Grisham said. “This just further demonstrates how biased the fashion magazine industry is, and shows how insecure and small-minded Anna Wintour really is.”
