Meryl Streep Recalls Melania Trump's Controversial Fashion Choice After Anna Wintour Says She 'Always Looks Like Herself'

Ingrid VasquezWed, April 8, 2026 at 12:26 AM UTC

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(L-R) Meryl Streep, First Lady Melania Trump, Anna WintourCredit: Kevin Winter/WireImage; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; TheStewartofNY/GC Images -

Meryl Streep reflected on Melania Trump's controversial "I Really Don’t Care, Do U?" coat during a Vogue interview

Streep discussed how women’s fashion often reflects societal expectations and pressures, especially for women in power

Anna Wintour praised Michelle Obama’s style and noted Melania Trump’s ability to dress like herself

Meryl Streep is giving her take on one of first lady Melania Trump's most controversial fashion choices.

Streep, who returns as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada 2, appears on the latest cover of Vogue alongside the magazine's former editor-in-chief and now global editorial director, Anna Wintour.

Their conversation, moderated by Greta Gerwig, touched on a range of topics, including how women are expected to dress to project power.

Meryl Streep attends the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on February 24, 2024Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty

Streep, who said that she had "so many thoughts about this," said, "I think the most powerful message that our current first lady sent was in the coat that said 'I Really Don’t Care, Do U?' when she was going to see migrant children who were incarcerated."

"All dress is about expressing yourself, but we’re also subject to larger historical and political sweeps of expectation," Streep, 76, continued.

Streep later veered away from discussing Trump to explaining how she sees women's fashion today in the new Vogue interview.

"I’m stunned at how women in power have to have bare arms on television while men are covered in shirts and ties or a suit," the three-time Oscar winner continued. "There’s an apology built into women. They have to show their smallness."

"It’s compensatory. The advancements of women in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of this one have been destabilizing. It’s as if women have to say, 'I’m little. I can’t walk in these shoes. I can’t run. I’m bare, not threatening,' " continued Streep.

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Wintour, for her part, said that she doesn't think wearing a "power suit" to the office "is any way necessary."

First Lady Melania Trump on June 21, 2018Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty; MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty

"Think about the women that one admires: Mrs. [Michelle] Obama comes to mind," Wintour, 76, said. "Whether she’s wearing J.Crew or Duro Olowu or Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel, she always looks like herself. I’m full of admiration for New York City’s new first lady because she looks so cool and wears a lot of vintage—young and modern and also entirely herself."

"To be fair, Melania Trump also always looks like herself when she dresses," she added.

First Lady Melania Trump departs Andrews Air Rorce Base in Maryland June 21, 2018 wearing a coat emblazoned with the words "I really don't care, do you?"Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty

Trump wore the green coat while visiting the Upbring New Hope Children's Shelter in McAllen, Texas, in June 2018. Despite wearing the coat on her way to the shelter and on her return trip, she took it off just before arriving at the shelter.

The first lady would later say in an October 2018 interview with ABC News that it's "obvious I didn't wear the jacket for the children, I wore the jacket to go on the plane and off the plane."

"It was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me," Trump, 55, added. "I want to show them I don't care. You could criticize whatever you want to say. But it will not stop me to do what I feel is right."

Anna Wintour attends The Gordon Parks Foundation Awards Dinner and Auction 2025Credit: Arturo Holmes/Getty for Gordon Parks Foundation

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The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrives in theaters on May 1.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”