If there is any group of creatives more pompous, vainglorious and silly than couture fashion designers, I would dearly love to know who they are.

The recent outpouring from pained dressmakers such as Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs about their reluctance to endow the forthcoming First Lady, Melania Trump, with free samples of their collections has reached a hauteur that pop stars, Premier League managers and members of the British Royal Family can only dream of. One can almost see Sophie Theallet (who has dressed Michelle Obama for eight years), stamp a petite foot while issuing the following press release: “I will not participate in dressing or associating in any way with the next First Lady.”

So hoorah for that Gallic scamp Jean Paul Gaultier, the man who put cones on Madonna and sex into everything. He reflected on this issue at the British Fashion Awards yesterday with his typical insouciance, saying, “If she asked me to dress her, why not?” Chapeau! He also pointed out that at 46 years of age, Melania Trump is also quite good at doing up buttons and invisible zips unaided. “She dresses very well by herself.”

Indeed, the wild thing about Melania Trump is that she’s not so grand that she is above buying her own clothes, and, er, putting them on her body. Like many other adults do on a regular basis.

Designer Jean Paul Gaultier 'definitely' willing to dress Melania Trump

Chaps, the hard news here is that Melania doesn’t need your freebies: she’s married to a billionaire! She turned up on election day in a jumpsuit that she had bought with ready money! Her entire time on the campaign trail was achieved in clothes she had craftily managed to acquire via a similar mercantile exchange.

Melania Trump, who from all accounts came from a pretty humble start in Slovenia, and started out in the US as a model, presumably knows what she likes and isn’t going to hang out for a freebie. Her style might not please the White House fashionistas who drone on endlessly about the “iconic” (basically twinsetty and yawningly dull) fashion sense of Jackie Kennedy or the way Michelle Obama channelled that radical “piece”, known to us mere mortals as a cardigan. Melania clearly likes her own look, and she seems pretty happy in it.

She’s not about to start genuflecting at the throne of the magnificent Marc Jacobs, who is clearly under some sort of bonkers illusion that if he starts lending the First Lady dresses, or maybe a coat, out will go the global flame of political dissent and discourse.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didn’t know the air conditioner didn’t work and sweated like dogs, and they didn’t know the room was too big because they didn’t have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me —and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

“I’d rather put my energy into helping those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters,” says Jacobs. Well, why don’t you put your energy into making some affordable clothes that everyone can wear, deary? Or go and put your energy into closing down the appalling sweatshops harnessed by the fashion trade? Perhaps Jacobs and his peers do all of that already – perhaps not.

But I’m afraid that what comes out of all their bleating is not so much a noble political stance as much as a flustered anxiety about the potential tarnishing of their brand by someone who, in their view, is not particularly pukka.