When First Lady Melania Trump wore a jacket Thursday with the phrase “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” scrawled across the back — while on her way to visit a Texas detention center for undocumented immigrant children that have been forcibly separated from their parents — the world responded with horror.
On Thursday evening, Portland queer fashion house Wildfang decided to create its own response to Trump’s Marie Antoinette moment: a pair of bomber jackets and a t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “I Really Care, Don’t U?” The new items aren’t just cheeky; 100 percent of the line’s proceeds go to the Texas-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), an organization helping immigrant families pay ICE-mandated bail bonds and to reconnect children with families.
Over 2,000 children of all ages have been ripped from the arms of their parents as part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border immigration policy. Many of those children are now lost in a labyrinthine bureaucracy, with many parents desperately trying to find out where their children are being held. Ten U.S. states have vowed to sue the federal government over the inhumane policy, and one Guatemalan mother successfully reunited with her 7-year-old son after filing a lawsuit against the administration for refusing to tell her where he’d been taken.
But it was Melania Trump’s “Let Them Eat Cake” fashion gesture that was the last straw for many. In response to questions from reporters, the First Lady’s press secretary Stephanie Grisham said there was “no hidden message” intended. But hours later, the president himself tweeted that the jacket’s message was meant for “the Fake News media.” Either way, the move was seen as horribly inappropriate for a visit to a shelter full of traumatized children in crisis.
“Within a few hours we decided as a team we wanted to do something — this could not go unnoticed — so we put our heads together and went with impact,” says Wildfang founder Emma Mcilroy.
Wildfang says the entire line sold out within one hour. So the team made even more — and the second run sold out overnight. Because most Wildfang items are now made in-house, says Mcilroy, the brand was able to quickly restock on Friday morning.
“Our customers have gone bananas over this,” says Mcilroy. “Our whole team is outraged and we refuse to stand by and watch. We stand proudly with immigrants and support their rights, and RAICES does amazing things for these families.”
