Designer Thom Browne, a favorite of Martha Stewart and Whoopi Goldberg, said he’d be open to working with Melania Trump, Page Six reports.
“Look, I respect her as the First Lady,” he said during a Q&A at the 92nd Street Y, “and it’s something that I would respect.”
This isn’t the first time Browne has discussed whether he would work with Trump. In an interview with Surface magazine in June 2017, he described “the response that the first lady got from designers in regards to dressing her” as “unfortunate.”
He continued: “We all should respect the office, and it shouldn’t become a political thing. The appreciation of what you do is what it should be. Dressing [Donald Trump] would be one thing. But with her, I think it’s different.”
Trump also wouldn’t be his first First Lady. Michelle Obama famously donned his personally commissioned design at the 2013 inauguration, and she also seems to like a short-sleeve dress with a black-lace overlay by him, having worn it multiple times. Speaking to the Cut after the 2013 inauguration, Browne described his reaction to discovering that Obama would be wearing his work as “pretty overwhelming.”
“She’s so supportive of so many American designers; I’m sure I was one of many asked to create something,” he said. “And that’s what made [her choosing mine] that much more special.”
