I don’t think it’s necessarily unwise for a business to make a political statement, particularly privately owned businesses in the fashion sector, said Abby Schreiber, managing editor at Paper Magazine. Fashion has always been about expression, provocation and, not infrequently, politics and, to that end, these designers ’ refusal to dress Melania Trump is not, in and of itself, unusual for this industry. fashion designers have long attempted to tell a story about their brand and vision and to articulate a feeling, emotion or sense of who their customer or ‘ muse ’ is, Schreiber said. And for those designers who are troubled by the hateful, bigoted rhetoric that surrounded Trump’s campaign, it may make sense for them to want to distance their brand and their vision from it. But Robert Casey, President of modeling agency Maggie, Inc., offered a simple solution.