Trump wore a green hooded coat with the words "I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” while visiting the Upbring New Hope Children's Shelter in McAllen, Texas in June 2018
Credit: Kevin Winter/WireImage; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; TheStewartofNY/GC Images
NEED TO KNOW
- Meryl Streep reflected on Melania Trump’s controversial “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” coat during a Vogue interview
- Streep discussed how women’s fashion often reflects societal expectations and pressures, especially for women in power
- Anna Wintour praised Michelle Obama’s style and noted Melania Trump’s ability to dress like herself
Meryl Streep is giving her take on one of first lady Melania Trump's most controversial fashion choices.
Streep, who returns as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada 2, appears on the latest cover of Vogue alongside the magazine's former editor-in-chief and now global editorial director, Anna Wintour.
Their conversation, moderated by Greta Gerwig, touched on a range of topics, including how women are expected to dress to project power.
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty
Streep, who said that she had "so many thoughts about this," said, "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."
"All dress is about expressing yourself, but we’re also subject to larger historical and political sweeps of expectation," Streep, 76, continued.
Streep later veered away from discussing Trump to explaining how she sees women's fashion today in the new Vogue interview.
"I’m stunned at how women in power have to have bare arms on television while men are covered in shirts and ties or a suit," the three-time Oscar winner continued. "There’s an apology built into women. They have to show their smallness."
"It’s compensatory. The advancements of women in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of this one have been destabilizing. It’s as if women have to say, 'I’m little. I can’t walk in these shoes. I can’t run. I’m bare, not threatening,' " continued Streep.
Wintour, for her part, said that she doesn't think wearing a "power suit" to the office "is any way necessary."
Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty; MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty
"Think about the women that one admires: Mrs. [Michelle] Obama comes to mind," Wintour, 76, said. "Whether she’s wearing J.Crew or Duro Olowu or Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel, she always looks like herself. I’m full of admiration for New York City’s new first lady 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," she added.
Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty
Trump wore the green coat while visiting the Upbring New Hope Children's Shelter in McAllen, Texas, in June 2018. Despite wearing the coat on her way to the shelter and on her return trip, she took it off just before arriving at the shelter.
The first lady would later say in an October 2018 interview with ABC News that 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."
"It was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me," Trump, 55, added. "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."
Credit: Arturo Holmes/Getty for Gordon Parks Foundation
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The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrives in theaters on May 1.
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