‘The Devil Wears Prada’ Star Meryl Streep Questions Melania Trump’s Decision to Wear Controversial Jacket

Meryl Streep recently weighed in on a fashion controversy that First Lady Melania Trump stirred up during husband President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

In a Vogue interview published Tuesday, April 7, the acclaimed actress, 76, joined the magazine’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour for a conversation with filmmaker Greta Gerwig ahead of Streep’s upcoming movie The Devil Wears Prada 2. 

Gerwig, 42, pointed out that “for women, dressing has always been more nebulous” than for men and asked Wintour, 76, whether she thinks “about how women are meant to dress to communicate power?”

In her response, the media executive pointed to a few powerful women in politics.

“I don’t think wearing a power suit to the office is in any way necessary. Think about the women that one admires: Mrs. Obama comes to mind. Whether she’s wearing J.Crew or Duro Olowu or Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel, she always looks like herself,” Wintour remarked. “I’m full of admiration for New York City’s new first lady [Rama Duwaji] because she looks so cool and wears a lot of vintage—young and modern and also entirely herself. To be fair, Melania Trump also always looks like herself when she dresses.”

Streep admitted she has “so many thoughts about this,” before bringing up Melania’s jacket she wore in June 2018 to visit the New Hope Children’s Shelter in McAllen, Texas.

“I think the most…powerful message that our current first lady sent was in the coat that said ‘I Really Don’t Care, Do U?’ when she was going to see migrant children who were incarcerated,” Streep reflected. “All dress is about expressing yourself, but we’re also subject to larger historical and political sweeps of expectation.”

In an October 2018 interview with ABC, Melania, 55, addressed the controversy surrounding her outfit choice.

“It’s obvious I didn’t wear the jacket for the children, I wore the jacket to go on the plane and off the plane,” she insisted. “It was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. I want to show them I don’t care. You could criticize whatever you want to say. But it will not stop me to do what I feel is right.”