Hurricane heel Melania puts her foot in it, again

Nothing suggests reassurance like a pair of flimsy shoes that could, in seconds, topple you, snap your ankles, and land you in the shit, writes Suzanne Harrington

Oh Melania, you had one job. One task. One message to transmit. Given how you don’t speak, instead you get your clothes to do your communicating for you — generally a zombie Kardashian projection of Jackie O — but what did that Texas costume say? It said ‘red carpet premiere of a disaster movie’. It said ‘Disaster Barbie’. It said ‘Hurricane Chic’. It said, ‘Ugh, no thanks, no way am I mucking in. Not in THESE shoes.’

Melania, what were you thinking? While towering heels say ‘I’m so above all of this’, box fresh white trainers just remind ordinary people of the filth they are currently negotiating as their homes fill with floodwater. Nothing will be box fresh for Texans for quite some time. Were you auditioning for a made-for-TV remake of Top Gun, in your shiny aviators and flight jacket? And wearing a hat that says ‘Flotus’ as people’s lives float past them, as bloated and wrecked as your husband — wasn’t that a teeny bit insensitive? Or had you forgotten who you are? Were you worried that we had? That we needed reminding?

It might seem picky to pick on your disaster outfit — of all the Trumps, you are significantly the least disastrous, merely muted and po-faced — but there was something so tone deaf about your sartorial message in the eye of the hurricane. While Donald looked like he was off for a round of golf in Kerry drizzle, his bad weather clothes looking like they had never seen bad weather, or indeed anywhere but the inside of a wardrobe, you were channelling Posh Spice in your white shirt and pout. How we longed for the real First Lady to appear, her bare arms hugging people, her smile wide, her shoes capable. Please Michelle — come back. Run for president. Save us.

You’d also imagine that Michelle O — as well as dispensing hugs and a sense of solidarity, rather than the distant gaze of a model admiring herself in the camera lens — might have by now acknowledged that while 31 dead in Texas is 31 too many, there have been 1,200 killed by identical floodwaters in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Some 1.8 million children unable to go to school. Another 41 million lives disrupted. Homes destroyed, livelihoods lost. Don’t they matter?

It took days for the Western media to notice the monsoon floods, probably because we were all too busy gawping at your shoes and wondering if there isn’t a wardrobe aide in the White House who could have pulled you to one side and whispered urgently, “Mrs Flotus, you don’t have to actually DO anything. But for heaven sake, can you at least look the part?” Or as the Wall Street Journal put it, “Melania is wearing stilettos to a hurricane zone.” Because nothing suggests reassurance like a pair of flimsy shoes that could, in seconds, topple you, snap your ankles, and land you in the shit. A metaphor for your husband’s leadership, Mrs Trump? They were perfect.