News

Inside Melania Trump’s extraordinary glow-up: From eye-popping to truly presidential (no wonder Ivanka looks furious!)

Looking at the Trump family assembled on stage in West Palm Beach last week, you might have thought they’d gathered for a cocktail party rather than a victory speech.

Sequins, shoulder pads and stilettos dominated in a line-up of plastic – and identikit – perfection.

Even Ivanka’s disco-esque blue crushed-velvet pantsuit, as ill-fitting as it was wrinkled, failed to add the pizzazz that might have lifted her above the group.

Following her husband’s historic re-election to the White House, it was left to Melania to raise the fashion game and assume in full her role as matriarch and consort of the Trump First Family.

Not for the first time, it was her clothes that told the story.

Revisiting a tried and trusted silhouette, Melania returned to Dior and another modern interpretation of the iconic ‘New Look’.

Though, instead of shopping her closet – as she did at July’s Republican National Convention, by recycling a red Dior skirt-suit – this was a debut for pieces from the designer’s latest fall collection.

The neat grey wool was a perceptive choice, highlighting a refashioned ‘new look’ for a new reign – with nod to Trump-friendly themes of opulence and history.

The double-breasted jacket with its flap pockets accentuated not only the careful proportions of the former, and now future, First Lady’s waist but the finely tuned tailoring.

This creation, hand-crafted in France, just happens to cost about $5,000. And amid a sea of American flags, dark suits and glamour-wear, Melania stood out and stood tall.

In 2016, still a new and inexperienced political spouse, Melania had floated onto the stage of her husband’s election night rally in a white off-the-shoulder silk crepe jumpsuit from Hillary Clinton’s go-to-designer Ralph Lauren.

The effect was more runway than presidential.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning last week, however, Melania projected the assured confidence of someone who was dressing for only one member of the audience: history.

The transformation of a woman once happy to pose atop a grand piano in a cleavage-baring minidress is one of the great evolutionary stories of what we now must acknowledge as the Trump Era.

Embracing thigh-high hems, leggy silhouettes, and plunging necklines, Melania spent the first decade of marriage to her media-mogul husband living up to her model credentials – and leaving no one in any doubt as to the physical assets that had propelled her from a Slovenian backwater to a 5th Avenue penthouse.

With a taste for the dramatic, she could be a gothic princess, enveloped in black satin and lace corsetry – as she was for a momentous appearance in May 2004 at the annual Met Gala. Or an all-American girl-next-door, sporting tight-fitting jeans and a plunging sheer baby-doll top to attend New York Fashion Week a few months later.

Melania might cringe when looking back over her pre-presidential fashion choices, but her step-family is probably less critical.

In fact, the other Trump women seem to have taken some inspiration – embracing the flesh and panache that many mainstream American women believe is appropriate when they have a figure to flaunt and money to burn.

Stepping tentatively into her role as the nation’s first wife, Melania’s style was initially erratic – moving from the effervescent architectural chic of her inaugural gown by couturier Hervé Pierre, to the militarized formality of a belted black sequined Michael Kors suit worn to her husband’s first address to Congress in March 2017.

Her appearance later that year in a bubble-gum pink midi-dress with exaggerated puff sleeves, by the Spanish designer Delpozo, for her first appearance at the United Nations seemed another demonstration that the briefing book did not always reach her in advance.

Yet, step by step, she mastered it, an achievement all the more remarkable given her status as Washington outsider.

Despite four years at the White House, Melania is aware that, like her husband, she is still not accepted as a true member of the nation’s most elite club.

When the ‘remarkable sisterhood’ of former First Ladies gathered for Rosalyn Carter’s funeral last year, the reaction was telling. Melania was absolutely entitled to be there, yet most assumed she would feel too daunted to attend.

In her new memoir – and perhaps unaware of how patronizing it might sound – Hillary Clinton admitted to having wondered if Melania would be ‘accepted’ at the service, comparing her to the ‘little kid at the birthday party who doesn’t know anyone and is waiting at the edge of the circle, hoping people are going to be nice.’

She was wrong. Melania’s understanding of her non-acceptance produced neither fear nor uncertainty but a perfectly calibrated act of sartorial defiance.

Eschewing tradition, she opted for a muted grey full-skirted Dior coatdress as striking for its tailoring as it was for its break with convention. In a sea of a black mourning, she stood completely alone. No one could have missed her unexpected inclusion at this stately event.

She took the same approach for the husband’s victory speech in the heat of Florida last week.

Unlike her stepdaughters, Melania got the memo that this was not a cocktail party. It was a moment for the history books. And, as we now expect, she dressed for the occasion.

Where once she had seemed just another bit-part in her husband’s retinue, Melania now stands fully poised atop his podium of presidential power.

Whatever happens in the course of the next four years, I think it is safe to conclude she has found her place at ‘the birthday party’.

Related Posts

Rachel Reeves to unveil ‘big bang’ on British economy with biggest pension reform in decades which could unlock up to £80 billion worth of investment

Rachel Reeves will today unveil a major pensions shake-up designed to unlock up to £80 billion of investment in British infrastructure and business. In her Mansion House speech tonight, the Chancellor will confirm she is pressing ahead with plans to merge pension schemes to create new ‘megafunds’ capable of investing in major infrastructure projects and emerging industries. Ms Reeves will argue that the move could unlock a wave of private sector investment that will boost her anaemic growth forecasts and ultimately provide better returns for pensioners.

Ed Miliband hopes to establish ‘common ground’ with Donald Trump on climate change – after US president-elect repeatedly referred to the issue as a ‘hoax

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has spoke of his hope to establish ‘common ground’ with Donald Trump on the climate issue. The US president-elect has repeatedly referred to climate change as a ‘hoax’ and has also vowed to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, which commits it to cutting greenhouse emissions as part of the effort to curb global warming. Speaking about the move towards clean energy, Mr Miliband said: ‘What I think is so striking about what’s happening – whether you talk to businesses or talk to other countries – people are getting on with the transition.

Massive change coming to cigarettes in Australia – as government tries to stamp out smoking for good

A health warning will be printed on every cigarette sold in Australia under strict new laws aimed at stamping out smoking. Under the tobacco regulations, warning messages including ‘poison in every puff’, ‘damages your lungs’, ’causes 16 cancers’, ‘shortens your life’ and ‘toxic addiction’ must be printed on every cigarette by April 2025. ‘We will be one of the first countries in the world to include this new public health measure, again seeking to educate but also dissuade smokers from using this deadly product,’ said health minister Mark Butler when he announced the legislation last year.

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Democratic Elites destroyed our party… its renewal begins with their repentance

Until the day he died in 1995, if you asked my father who he voted for in any presidential election he said ‘Roosevelt.’ It was gospel in our house that Democrats were the party of the people and Republicans were the economic royalists. That was then, and this is now. The majority of Americans don’t necessarily see it that way anymore.

Passenger plane sprayed with gunfire while landing & 2nd jet shot on take-off in ‘world’s most dangerous city’ in Haiti

HAITI’S international airport was forced to shut down after gangs opened fire at a passenger plane. The Spirit Airlines flight from Florida was struck by bullets as it went to touch down Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport. A flight attendant was injured as gangs sprayed the plane – which had come from Fort Lauderdale – with gunfire on Monday.

Kamala Harris gave $500,000 to MSNBC anchor’s nonprofit before network’s fawning interview

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign delivered $500,000 in donations to Al Sharpton’s non-profit organization, just prior to a glowing interview with the candidate on MSNBC. Harris’s campaign gave two payments of $250,000 to National Action Network on September 5 and October 1, according to campaign finance records first reported by the Washington Free Beacon and confirmed by DailyMail.com. Sharpton publicly backed Harris after Biden endorsed her to succeed him in his reelection campaign. After Sharpton’s organization received donations from Harris, he got a coveted sit-down interview with her just two weeks before the election

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *