The Brand

The day in April that Ivanka Trump appeared on the dais with Angela Merkel at the Women's Summit in Berlin, I was in my office. I was listening to a vibrant and astute young woman in her twenties as she confessed, a little sheepishly, that her new shirt had “trendy” sleeves. She indicated her bell-shaped sleeves. I instantly recognized the sleeves as those that I had seen worn by the various Trump women. Startled, I realized that the images created by these women were seeping into the consciousness of young women. How could I have thought otherwise? I remembered that I too had taken note of those bell-shaped sleeves, disturbed by an echo of something archaic — a robe, perhaps, or a religious habit. Later, as I watched Ivanka on the dais I understood that she is not only serving as an essential tool of her father's administration. She is also revising our concept of women and power.

Seated next to Angela Merkel, Ivanka is dressed in what could only be called a “frock.” In her pale blue, delicately flowered dress she appeared an ingenue, slim and untouched. She seemed to have alighted from her tower, a maiden beside a crone. When asked what her role was in her father's administration, she answered, in her soft voice echoing with spun sugar and spiderwebs, that she did not know. She spoke with an air of spellbinding indifference, even as her response begged the question of what she was doing there at all. No matter. Her stunning remark was really a statement of triumph, a belief in her entitlement to the power that has been bestowed upon her by her father.

Angela Merkel sits next to Ivanka dressed in a red jacket, the requisite variation on the theme of a man's suit. She looks well used, a real woman who has worked, struggled and bled. Her clothes, and those of the other genuinely powerful women on the dais, seem to represent a conversation that has been taking place for decades: