--- title: Melania Trump: Here's the Subtle Message in Her Dress description: For her national debut at the Republican National Convention Monday, Melania Trump chose a white dress that had a subtle message behind it. canonical: https://time.com/4412183/heres-the-subtle-message-in-melania-trumps-dress/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-19T04:46:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:21:02.433Z article:section: Politics og:title: Here's the Subtle Message in Melania Trump's Dress og:description: A shoutout to a designer whose life mirrors her own. og:url: https://time.com/4412183/heres-the-subtle-message-in-melania-trumps-dress/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b4a919d9a09ff88/69889c74e20a8745cfa91a3f/gettyimages-577294938.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Melania Trump, wife of Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, waves to the crowd after delivering a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's the Subtle Message in Melania Trump's Dress twitter:description: A shoutout to a designer whose life mirrors her own. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b4a919d9a09ff88/69889c74e20a8745cfa91a3f/gettyimages-577294938.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's the Subtle Message in Melania Trump's Dress by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Jul 19, 2016 4:46 AM UTC  Melania Trump, wife of Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, waves to the crowd after delivering a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Melania Trump, wife of Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, waves to the crowd after delivering a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.Alex Wong—Getty Images by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Jul 19, 2016 4:46 AM UTC For her national debut, Melania Trump chose a chic white dress that had a subtle message behind it. Speaking at the Republican National Convention about her husband’s presidential campaign, Trump wore [a dress from Roksanda](https://www.net-a-porter.com/us/en/product/730230/roksanda/margot-cotton-and-silk-blend-dress) currently selling online for $2,190. The brand is popular with such luminaries as Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton, but it’s also notable because designer [Roksanda Ilincic](http://roksanda.com) was born in Serbia. Serbia, of course, was once a part of Yugoslavia, along with Slovenia, where Trump was born—[“a small, beautiful and then-communist country in Central Europe,”](http://time.com/4412008/republican-convention-melania-trump-2/) as she described it in her speech. The two countries have been separate since a series of ethnic conflicts in the 1990s divided Yugoslavia. Like Trump, Ilincic moved away and now lives in London, where her company is based. In choosing the dress, Trump chose elegance, but also chose to give a shoutout to a designer whose life mirrors her own. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4412183/heres-the-subtle-message-in-melania-trumps-dress/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4412183/heres-the-subtle-message-in-melania-trumps-dress/"},"headline":"Here's the Subtle Message in Melania Trump's Dress","datePublished":"2016-07-19T04:46:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:21:02.433Z","description":"For her national debut at the Republican National Convention Monday, Melania Trump chose a white dress that had a subtle message behind it.","url":"https://time.com/4412183/heres-the-subtle-message-in-melania-trumps-dress/","keywords":["Republican National Convention","2016 Election topic","Donald Trump","Melania Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b4a919d9a09ff88/69889c74e20a8745cfa91a3f/gettyimages-577294938.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ryan Teague Beckwith","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b4a919d9a09ff88/69889c74e20a8745cfa91a3f/gettyimages-577294938.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Melania Trump, wife of Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, waves to the crowd after delivering a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.","caption":"Melania Trump, wife of Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, waves to the crowd after delivering a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.","creditText":"Alex Wong—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/republican-national-convention/","name":"Republican National Convention"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4412183/heres-the-subtle-message-in-melania-trumps-dress/","name":"Here's the Subtle Message in Melania Trump's Dress"}}]}] ```