OPINION - The mob-wife vibe shift is perfect for Melania Trump’s likely world stage comeback
Nearly a month down in 2024 and we’ve already hit a new “aesthetic” mood as they describe them on Tiktok, the current pool of zeitgeist-y thoughts. They’re calling it mob-wife; I would perhaps argue that the look owes more to Kat Slater than Carmela Soprano but you could also file it under “sexy-funeral”.
For me it recalls my Shoreditch indie sleaze Noughties days, when I lived in a vintage leopard-print faux fur coat I bought off eBay for a tenner and would spend the day gradually scribbling more and more black kohl around my eyes until I could just about squint my way along Kingsland Road — tottering in a pair of platform, wait for it, strappy burgundy pony skin sample sale Louboutins. Simpler times.
Current thinking hasn’t moved on much. There’s lashings of black, leather ideally, tops skirting over cleavage, a spiky pointed heel and a dash of animal print. Accessorise with black sunglasses at all hours and a filler-pout. The look has also provoked a resurgence of fur — both faux and real.
It plays into a collective fixation with fetishising extreme wealth, which is always an interesting turn of events in an economic downturn. Are we gaslighting ourselves? I’ve become obsessed with the Instagram account @classofpalmbeach which documents women clad head-to-toe in Chanel and Harry Winston diamonds as they meander the posh supermarkets of the Floridian one per cent enclave.
See also Lauren Sanchez, Mrs Jeff Bezos, who has made flashy, brash dressing her social-media-thirst-trap own. Polite beige be damned, some rich people really just like looking like their bank accounts have thrown up on them.
There is something of a vibe shift coming into play. I think we’ve seen the end for now of endless iterations of a white T-shirt and blue jeans on a runway. The spring-summer shows were riddled with the things, an underscoring of the so-called stealth wealth, quiet luxury leanings of the past year (thank you and your Utah court case, Gwyneth Paltrow) and reflection of the commercial restraints luxury labels are under (ie, they really need to shift some product). The onus has been on wearable, sellable, timeless clothes.
And yet, the mood of last week’s haute couture shows in Paris was undeniably maximalist. Pierpaolo Piccioli, having thrown a lot of pure white and artisan denim at his last two outings for Valentino, resolutely embraced bold, clashing jewel brights. For Alaïa, Pieter Mulier teased extravagant fur-like coats out of a genius employment of merino wool; while at Kim Jones’s Fendi there were decidedly glamorous swathings of fur with slinky black-skirted attitude.
Whether the trend has real legs to endure will as ever depend on its arbiters. There is one mob-wife yet to emerge back on to the world stage. With Donald Trump’s somewhat inevitable looking re-entry to the White House looming, it may fall to Melania to direct the wind on this one.
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