Especially because this time around Mrs. Trump chose to wear something from the mass market brand Zara — Zara! — instead of her usual Dolce & Gabbana or Ralph Lauren. This is a first lady, after all, who decided to wear a $1,380 Balmain plaid shirt during a White House gardening initiative. She is not a high/low dresser in public — or has never been since the election. She’s been all high seemingly all the time.

So how else to interpret the Zara jacket, a style in line with the signature self-protective aesthetic she has developed since entering the White House, except as an indication Mrs. Trump was thinking about what people might read into the clothes she chose to wear to visit children left with, effectively, nothing?

The jacket, after all, which is reportedly sold out and is not from the current season, retailed for $39. It may be the least expensive garment the first lady has worn while representing the administration.

And then there’s the fact that Mrs. Trump has never been one to shy away from coding pointed, not necessarily, popular communications into her wardrobe. She did, after all, wear a white trouser suit — the uniform of the Hillary Clinton-led opposition — to her husband’s first State of the Union address.

All of which suggests there is very little chance she did not know what she was doing with that “I really don’t care” coat. (Zara declined to comment.)