This summer’s power fashion trend – white

Indeed there is, Mia, and it’s one that I only cottoned on to after the US political conventions – not, it has to be said, usually a hotbed of fashion trends. I don’t want to be mean about American politicians (well, not all of them), but let’s put it this way: they don’t tend to give Milan fashion week too many paroxysms of insecurity when it comes to carving out the look of the season.

Ridiculus Tellus Purus Nullam

And yet, a trend most definitely came from, of all places, Pittsburgh and Cleveland – and that trend is white. I first noticed this during Melania Trump’s karaoke version of Michelle Obama’s speech during the Republican National Convention, when she wore a white Roksanda dress that was a lot more impressive than anything that came out of her mouth. It was also, I thought, not very Melania.

Hillary Clinton then wore a white pantsuit at the DNC, a nod, apparently, to white being the colour of the suffragettes. Rather amusingly, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty wore the same white dress as Melania to the DNC, and not only did she look better in it, she also reminded everyone about what is now referred to as the Melania Incident. So 2-0 to Congresswoman Beatty.

Finally, this week, Michelle Obama wore a sleeveless full-length white dress to a state dinner for the prime minister of Singapore. I like to think Queen Obama chose this as an homage to the full-length white dress by Jason Wu that she wore to the Inaugural Ball in a kinda “Remember that night? Well, now we are outta here! You’re gonna miss us, guys!” way.

White really is the ultimate power colour. We can talk about its references to purity, saintliness and all other words that are just synonyms for virginity until the white cows come home. But the truth is, what it is about now is a woman who wants to be noticed, doesn’t care if her thighs look fat and doesn’t give a damn about her dry-cleaning bill. Now, if that isn’t a power statement, I don’t know what is. And that’s what summer 2016 is all about, fashion-wise: ladies not giving a good goddamn, whether it’s about breaking glass ceilings or blatantly ripping off someone else’s speech on the international stage.