What will Melania's first days as first lady look like?
Historian Jane Hampton Cook provides insight on 'Fox & Friends'
A fashion designer who dressed First Lady Michelle Obama made headlines last week when she wrote she couldn't in good conscience do the same for Melania Trump. But several designers we talked to say they'd love to work with the next First Lady.
Celebrity designer Bradley Scott says boycotting the First Lady is just plain disrespectful, whoever she might be. “First Lady is First Lady, it’s a position that should be exalted not disrespected," Scott told FOX411. "I can't believe anyone would basically spit at the opportunity. It’s so un-American."
Stylist Phillip Bloch, who was the creative style director for the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants under Donald Trump, said he can see how a designer might want to make a political statement, bu says he plans on reaching out to the First Couple to help in any way he can.
Fashion designer refuses to work for Melania Trump
“Fashion is a very fickle business. It’s hard to separate fashion from politics," Bloch said. "But Melania is chic, tall, and beautiful. She has done nothing wrong, and the First Lady is a phenomenal platform for designer.”
Designer Sophie Theallet wrote her controversial essay on Thursday, saying: “The rhetoric of racism, sexism, and xenophobia unleashed by her husband’s presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by.”
One fashion expert said that it could indeed be bad business for certain designers to align his or her business with Trump.
Model ripped for Melania Trump impersonation
“I don’t think it’s necessarily unwise for a business to make a political statement, particularly privately-owned businesses in the fashion sector," said Abby Schreiber, managing editor at Paper Magazine. "Fashion has always been about expression, provocation and, not infrequently, politics and, to that end, these designers’ refusal to dress Melania Trump is not, in and of itself, unusual for this industry.”
Schreiber said if that person is equated with a message at odds with his or her brand, it makes sense to not have them wear the company's clothes.
“Fashion designers have long attempted to tell a story about their brand and vision and to articulate a feeling, emotion or sense of who their customer or ‘muse’ is," Schreiber said. "And for those designers who are troubled by the hateful, bigoted rhetoric that surrounded Trump’s campaign, it may make sense for them to want to distance their brand and their vision from it."
But Robert Casey, President of modeling agency Maggie, Inc., offered a simple solution.
“Melania doesn’t need to rely on designer loaners, she has the money to purchase whatever she desires to wear, regardless of the opinion of the designer on the label."
Which means Melania could wear a Theallet dress whether she wants her to, or not.
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