Will Melania Trump’s inauguration look ‘make hats great again?’

Melania Trump’s inaugural headwear may have made quite the statement, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s ushering in a “make hats great again” fashion era, according to a White House and style expert.

“The silhouette, and the sharpness and the severe aesthetic of this one, it just felt very ready for business,” Kate Bennett, author of 2019’s “Free, Melania,” said Tuesday of Trump’s now-famous hat designed by Eric Javits that the first lady sported on Inauguration Day.

The dramatic accessory — which rapidly became the focus of countless Carmen Sandiego and McDonald’s Hamburglar memes, internet searches and online chatter — gave the message that “I’m not the same person I was when I first came here,” said Bennett.

“I recognize that sounds deep, maybe overthinking, but this is a woman who communicates via her clothes certainly more than any other first lady I can think of,” said Bennett, a former CNN White House correspondent and now vice president at the lobbying firm Invariant.

While slipping on some styles has led them to fly off the shelves almost-instantly — the bell-sleeved dress Trump wore at the Republican National Convention in 2016 quickly sold out online — Bennett said she doesn’t expect Washington to suddenly be flooded with fedoras, fascinators and more.

“Everything is led, especially today, by party lines, by affiliation, by partisanship. So those who want to emulate and support the first lady and enjoy her style, for sure, it could be a trendsetter,” said Bennett, a former fashion editor.

“But I also had more than one person texting me this morning and say, ‘I’m throwing away all of my Eric Javits hats.’ Those obviously were people who did not support the Trump presidency.”

When there are “occasions that call for hats, we’ll see hats,” Bennett said, “I don’t think it’s going to be like ‘Mamie pink’ for Mamie Eisenhower or Jackie Kennedy’s pillbox that every woman in America copied. I don’t see that happening now, but I think it was definitely a statement.”

Trump, a former model, is “not a verbal person” or a “prolific speaker,” Bennett noted.

“She’s private. She doesn’t necessarily share openly. And I don’t think she’s ever been like that,” Bennett said.

“But I think being with Donald Trump for 20 years, she has not a lot of space to talk. So she’s learned a different way to to communicate, and I think she does that via her clothes.”

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