In the latest example of the Trump administration’s frightening priorities, the White House press secretary Sean Spicer has declared that any attack on Ivanka Trump’s clothing line is also a “direct attack” on the US president.
Spicer’s comments come after the line was dropped, or quietly sidelined, by US retailers including Nordstrom, Marshalls and Neiman Marcus. But is it “unfair” – to use the Trumpism – to think that Nordstrom might simply have dropped the line owing to sales performance, as the company has claimed? Or could it be the fashion?
In short, are the clothes any good?
The fashion top line: there is nothing “alt” about the Ivanka Trump fashion range, aesthetically speaking. There are shoes that seem heavily inspired by the two-tone Chanel slingbacks that flooded Instagram feeds this time last year. There are bags whose extended side-panels recall the famous Celine Trapeze tote. There’s a black shopper with laser cut-outs that is spookily reminiscent of the £1,780 status arm-candy by Azzedine Alaia. There are Chanel 2.55-shaped handbags of the kind produced in every supermarket concession. The collection shows a talent for taking the temperature of what was happening in design five years ago, which is par for the course in high street design.
That slightly-late-to-the-zeitgeist flavour continues throughout the Ivanka Trump shopping website, which is bordered in millennial pink and looks like Pinterest by way of Tu at Sainsbury’s.
Creatively, it’s all a bit uninspiring, but there are passable moments. Such as serviceable elevated basics – a chic peach skirt that ties at the side, stretch black leggings, simple V-neck shift dresses – and other pieces with perfectly nice design tweaks, such as dresses with cold shoulder cut-outs and a nautical stripe knit dress with ruffle sleeves.
There are trickier pieces, too: little jackets with “fun” zips as a detail, T-shirts with a peplum that creates the unfortunate illusion of saddlebags. There is a particularly worrying two-tone top with dual fringe of the kind Sienna Miller might have worn in the noughties if everything else she owned had been destroyed in a fire.
These are not clothes that will trouble the creative directors of Vetements and Balenciaga, but they will find fans in those who like designs that don’t scare the horses, some of whom are currently bickering it out in the reviews section of stockists’ websites. At one shopping website, Zappos, one consumer says Trump’s shoes are: “Super ... But who cares about the shoes since apparently Zappos accepts reviews of a political nature on their website”, while another counters: “I don’t know where the positive reviews are coming from. These are super uncomfortable.” As with all things Trump, there are truths and there are alternative truths.
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