HAT ATTACK

Jimmy Fallon Mocks Melania Trump for Wearing ‘Hamburglar’ Hat Inspired by Cheeseburger Thief

You might laugh, but the first lady’s fashion choices are serious business.

Jimmy Fallon mocked first lady Melania Trump’s choice of hat at the inauguration and compared it to the outfit worn by the McDonald’s Hamburglar.

Fallon wore his own, floppier, wide-brimmed black hat with a white stripe in the opening segment of Monday’s edition of the Tonight Show.

“After this we’re going to play who wore it best? Me, Melania or the Hamburglar?” he said, referring to the cheeseburger-stealing character, before throwing his hat away like a frisbee.

Melania’s choice of outfit was a foil for several of Fallon’s jokes throughout the show: “It’s Melania’s very own border wall,” he said while showing a clip of President Trump failing to get past the hat’s brim when trying to kiss her cheek.

The designer of the hat said it was meant to send a right-wing political message, and fashion critics have been quick to attack this symbolism.

Former Harrods fashion editor Tiffanie Starke said it was a “sartorial prop that sat somewhere between Gestapo uniform and Al Capone cosplay.“

Despite the jokes from Fallon, what the first lady wears is serious business.

Sitting in the second row of the inauguration stage behind former President Bill Clinton, was Bernard Arnault, the French billionaire CEO of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH.

Arnault may be concerned about recent choices by her French stylist Hervé Pierre, who chose not to dress her in LVMH-owned Dior for the big day.

Pierre, who has helped style Melania since 2017, now prefers to source outfits for the first lady from smaller, boutique stores, reports Glitz Paris, rather than from major fashion labels owned by the Arnaults.

Melania is a loyal client of Pierre’s, even after he was reported to picked out that famous Zara jacket—emblazoned “I really don’t care”—for her to wear on a trip to a children’s refugee camp.

The Arnault family’s business interests in the U.S. include luxury handbags, fashion and alcohol, all of which is threatened by potential 25 percent tariffs which Trump has been threatening to impose on both enemies and allies.

To Arnault, what the first lady wears is serious business indeed.