Meghan and Melania are two of the most divisive women in America. They couldn’t be more different. But there’s a clever trick they both depend on, writes JANE TIPPETT

They are without question two of the most divisive female public figures of the moment.

Boasting a bi-partisan contingent of detractors, it is almost impossible to find anyone who doesn’t have an opinion about either Meghan Markle or Melania Trump and it’s the negative voices that tend to be loudest.

Their every move, statement and outfit is scrutinized on a granular level, and turned into supporting evidence for almost universally damning conclusions about who they are both professionally and personally.

Perhaps the forty-three-year-old Duchess of Sussex would rail against any comparison between herself and the fifty-four-year old Slovenian model turned First Lady whose husband just days ago denounced Meghan as ‘terrible.’

But, while it may be tempting to conclude that these high-profile consorts have little in common, nothing could be further from the truth that they wear on their expensively couture-clad sleeves.

Though both celebrities in their own right prior to their marriages, their union with much more famous men catapulted them onto a stage that neither ever expected to occupy.

To complicate matters further, neither fit the traditional expectations of what was required for their newfound status.

A divorced American whose claim to fame was as an actress on the legal drama, Suits was as unlikely a candidate for the role of royal duchess, as was a model turned mogul’s wife for that of First Lady.

But despite President Trump’s vocal criticism of Team Sussex, I wonder if Meghan might have felt a pang of sympathy for the 47th President’s other half in recent weeks.

Vogue’s scathing review of Melania’s newly released official White House portrait, which slammed her as looking, ‘more like a magician than a public servant,’ was a visceral attack on a woman whom even Meghan must recognize is every bit as scrutinized and criticized as she is.

Imagine if that photograph had been of Michelle Obama or Jill Biden. Instead of being sneered at for its theatrical styling, might pundits have praised it as an expression of female agency and strength?

It’s the sort of double standard to which Meghan herself is frequently victim.

In October 2024, appearing at a Los Angeles benefit, she upcycled an extravagant red silk Carolina Herrera evening dress first worn when she and Harry attended the Salute to Freedom Gala in New York City.

Removing its voluminous train, the gown took on a lighter more relaxed feel, mirrored in Meghan’s decision to fallow her dark brown locks to fall in beachy-style waves against her shoulder.

Fashion thrift is usually a source of praise for royal women – the Princess of Wales, the Duchess of Edinburgh and the Princess Royal have all been applauded for appearing in the same outfit more than once. Yet Meghan drew not praise but opprobrium.

Most of the reaction centered on her unkempt hair and the fact that she had appeared without her other half.

The reality is that the more closely you look, the more closely Meghan and Melania align in both the challenges they face and how they have chosen to navigate them.

It has not been plain sailing for either.

Each has wobbled as they struggled to adapt to settings and situations that clearly did not come naturally.

For women allotted few opportunities to speak, that meant that their clothes became the best barometer of what was clearly at times an unsettling journey.

Who can forget Meghan’s awkward debut at a Buckingham Palace garden party? Just two days after her wedding, the former poster girl for ripped jeans and Chanel flats went full on ‘repli-Kate’ in a rose pink below the knee dress, Philip Treacy hat, satin clutch and (shock!) sheer panty-hose that shimmered in the May afternoon sun.

Clearly taking cues from her sister-in-law, Meghan looked uncomfortably not herself – an apt metaphor as it transpired for the tumult already taking place behind palace walls.

A few weeks later, she opted for a protocol-breaking pink off-the-shoulder-dress with a matching hat, again by Treacy, to attend the Trooping of the Color.

If this outfit was an attempt to find some compromise between her own style and that of her new in-laws, it merely served to demonstrate the conflict between who Meghan was and what convention said she should be.

This same friction was evident as Melania navigated her husband’s unexpected political win in 2017.

Thrust into the spotlight, her clothes, though always extravagant both in terms of price and proportion, seemed more a result of role playing than an open acceptance of her new status as First Lady.

And, though Melania’s impersonation of Jackie Kennedy in the pale blue Ralph Lauren day dress worn for the 2017 inaugural was remarkably precise, it pointed to a woman who lacked confidence.

Just as Meghan seemed to be dressing up as a royal critics pointed out that Melania seemed more comfortable impersonating a former First Lady than putting her real self on display.

Because whatever she did she just couldn’t win. At her first major policy speech at the United Nations, she appeared dressed in a hot pink bell-sleeve Delpozo midi-dress, and was immediately attacked for choosing what most deemed an ugly and unsuitable outfit for such a serious moment.

Interpreted as another indication of her flippant attitude towards a position many assumed she never wanted in the first place, the reality was that a breakdown in communication between her disorganized East Wing staffers meant her stylist was not briefed on what the day entailed.

Both Meghan and Melania have learned the hard way that every time they come into the public eye their clothing, is analyzed and read as an unspoken, but powerful, expression of intent.

As such, it was hardly surprising that Melania’s infamous ‘I Really Don’t Care Do You’ jacket became a lightning rod for speculation, seen as a clue to her political collaboration with an administration then under fire for a policy that separated migrant children from their parents.

Similarly Meghan’s decision to deck herself out in an eight thousand dollars’ worth of Loro Piano clothing to pay to visit an elementary school in Harlem where she entertained an assembled group with a reading of her children’s book The Bench seemed tone deaf in the context of such post pandemic hardship.

In fact overt shows of material consumption ran rampant throughout the Sussex’s Netflix documentary, perhaps best displayed by the $2,000 Hermes Avalon throw against which Meghan nestled at her desk.

It is impossible to see this literal security blanket as anything other than self-soothing proof of the importance Meghan places on material success – after all this is something that no number of detractors can diminish.

Because, like Melania, who also surrounds herself with riches, I believe that jewelry, clothing and accessories have become an important means of Meghan shielding herself from the criticism that she has rightly or wrongly come to expect.

Dressing expensively and beautifully has become, to reference her 2019 interview with Tom Bradby, a quintessential means of thriving and not just surviving her world.

Whatever one might have thought about the decision to honor the Sussexes with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award in December 2022, it was undeniable that in her custom white long-sleeved gown complete with front slit (and again) off-the-shoulder neckline she posed a formidable challenge to anyone who questioned their right to such an accolade.

Similarly her clothing was an armor of sorts when she faced what she knew would be the hostility of the congregation gathered for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Service of Thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey a few months earlier in February 2022.

She made her way through a crowd, all but devoid of friends, serene in a custom Dior trench coat.

Now freed from all formal royal obligations, California chic is Meghan’s most frequent and truest incarnation.

Like Melania, who seems to have accepted that she will find little support beyond the rarified circles of Mar-a-Lago’s elite, Meghan has embraced looking good the way she wants to.

Also like Melania, Meghan has decided that it is time to surface from the silence that has characterized most of her (at least royal) public life.

With her Netflix series With Love, Meghan due to air next month and her return to Instagram offering the kind of tantalizing snippets that were once the mainstay of her lifestyle blog, The Tig, Meghan seems poised to return to a path that marriage into monarchy had abruptly forestalled but which she wore unmistakably well.

Melania too has decided to embrace reality television. Her documentary about her life is set to debut on Amazon and bring its star a reported $40 million paycheck. 

The move blindsided many but, just like her official portrait, the decision suggests that this is an emboldened First Lady who is now unafraid to chart her own unconventional course.

Because Meghan and Melania have learned to navigate public life in a remarkably similar way.

They have taken control of their image, telegraphing their intent and showing the substance detractors long doubted they possessed through their newly confident styles.

After years of playing a role they’re showing up for real – critics be damned.