About Melania Trump and that $51,500 jacket she wore in Italy …

First lady Melania Trump stepped out in Sicily on Friday wearing a Dolce & Gabbana floral coat with multicolored silk flowers that retails for $ 51,500. No one was more excited about this than designer Stefano Gabbana, who lauded the occasion on his personal Instagram with a flurry of heart emoji. Others on social media wondered what exactly could possibly make a coat worth so much money. And, of course, there was the howdare-she contingent who contrasted the costly coat with her husband’s health care bill, which is estimated to strip 23 million people of their medical insurance by 2026: The lady wears Dolce while the middle class implodes.

The head- shaking and tsk- tsking over Melania Trump’s coat calls to mind the outrage and indignation that erupted in 2009 when Michelle Obama wore $ 540 Lanvin sneakers to a Washington food bank. There’s a big price gap between a pair of designer sneakers and a coat that costs as much as a house in some parts of the country, but the fundamental point is the same: fashion shame.

Clothes can be deeply symbolic. And Trump’s choice of Dolce & Gabbana — an Italian brand that has been deeply inspired by Sicilian culture — for a trip to Sicily makes sense. Gabbana also has been quite vocal and enthusiastic in his willingness to associate his brand with the first lady, something many designers have not been comfortable doing because of her husband’s policies and temperament. Indeed, Trump has worn the label multiple times on her inaugural foreign trip. (The Washington Post)