MELANIA
By Isabella Redjai · 11 November 2024
Book reviewed: Melania Trump’s “Melania“, Skyhorse (2024)
Melania Trump: A Life of Excellence, Her Way
Certain levels of dignity and poise are typically limited to aristocrats groomed for positions of influence from birth. Access, resources, and opportunities are readily available to those who are bred in situations of modern royalty. But, in rare circumstances, humble beginnings can birth character and class that unknowingly prepares a person for a future of greatness. One such example would be Melania Knauss – now known famously as Melania Trump. Her sense of beauty is clear not just from her gracefulness and supermodel physique, but an artistic sensibility, nurtured from a young age, which has shaped the story of her life.
In her new autobiography, Melania, the once and future First Lady narrates her story as a modern fairytale that begins in New York City, when she touches down at JFK at the age of 26 into a chaotic symphony of rolling suitcases, honking cabs, and the bustling energy of international travelers. As Melania set foot on American soil, she knew she was crossing a threshold. “Despite the fog of jet lag,” she writes, “I recognized the importance of this moment. My life had shifted direction, presenting new opportunities, and I was ready to embrace the path ahead.”
As she crosses the East River, she sees the famous Manhattan skyline for the first time: “I recognize the profound significance of that decision to move to New York […] Life’s circumstances shape you in many ways, often entirely beyond your control […] As an adult, there comes a moment when you become solely responsible for the life you lead […] Coming to America, coming to New York City? That was my moment.”
Every New Yorker remembers their own version of that moment. But Melania’s would be more consequential than most, since her future would come to be tied to a man who would continue to build into this very skyline, and even in some sense, personify it.
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Born in a small town in Slovenia when it was still part of communist Yugoslavia, Melania describes a loving upbringing with opportunities for freedom, adventure, and creativity. Thanks to her devoted parents — her father was a sales professional with a passion for cars, and her mother was a fashion designer — she absorbed the values of industry, taste-making, and resilience from an early age that shaped a personality both grounded and pioneering. She describes trips to the Dalmatian Coast, listening to Donna Summer and Elton John records with her older sister Ines, marveling at her father’s antique car collection, and her introduction to modeling by walking the runway in her mother’s creations.
Melania identifies her mother as the source of her love for fashion and credits her sister with encouraging her to leave Slovenia and explore the world. “My family’s pride in my achievements,” she writes, “was a constant source of motivation.”
In Milan and Paris, before moving to New York City, Melania navigates a complex world infamous for exploitation of young women, and particularly brutal in the early 1990s, when murky quid pro quo dynamics predominated. Seeing impressionable women tempted by the offers of powerful men promising them opportunities, Melania’s self-possession helped to avoid the darkness that consumed some of her colleagues. “I was convinced I had made the right choices,” she reflects.
Melania saved her love for New York itself. “I found myself utterly enamored with the pulse of New York City,” she writes, “It resonated with me from the beginning — the fast tempo and the positive energy.”
The intoxicating rhythm of Manhattan brought Melania with portfolio in hand and shoes in bag to early morning meetings with photographers, carefree evenings with girlfriends at Cipriani in Soho, and the occasional night on the town rubbing elbows with New York insiders. She describes this time of her life as solitary – yet these very moments shaped the independence and cosmopolitan attitude that would be needed for future endeavors.
Although exciting, Melania describes the modeling world as one of frequent and anticipated rejection: “For every job secured by one model, hundreds of others are turned away […] Sometimes – many times – there’s no discernible reason at all.” To succeed demands resolve and perseverance. But the payoff is always worth it. She would finally see her own face on a billboard in the heart of Times Square.
Melania Knauss adjusts the bowtie of her future husband, Donald Trump, during a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach (December 31, 2002)
Norma Foerderer, Melania Knauss, and Donald Trump at the Plaza Hotel, New York (October 31, 2002) / Melania Knauss adjusts the bowtie of her future husband, Donald Trump, during a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach (December 31, 2002) / Trump's fiance Melania Knauss talks with Vogue's Anna Wintour during Mendel Spring 2005 fashion show, New York City (September 13, 2004)
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Everyone reading Melania awaits for the entrance of Trump; when he finally appears it comes in the form of a chapter entitled: “Hi, I’m Donald Trump.”
At that point still merely a New York City real estate mogul and playboy, “the Donald” immediately took an interest in Melania, and did what any smart man would do when encountering a woman of her caliber: he asked about her. He then asked for her number, and she refused. She told him, “Give me your number.”
A high-quality woman knows she wants to be able to decide whether she calls a man, rather than remain at the mercy of the man’s own discretion. He gave her his personal number, not his work phone number. Many today wouldn’t recognize the difference.
After six years of dating, the 34-year-old Melania married the 58-year-old Donald Trump at a wedding almost royal, by modern standards. Held at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, the guest list featured over 500 A-list attendees including former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and television journalists Barbara Walters, Matt Lauer, and Kelly Ripa.
Although the way of the world, it will be ironic to see a majority of these wedding guests and good friends – including media personalities – turn their backs on Donald and Melania Trump as their political future transpired.
Another moment lost in the history of the New York social scene is the moment when the engagement of Donald and Melania captured the attention of the most influential woman in fashion, Anna Wintour. Wintour would feature Melania on the cover of Vogue, complete with an exclusive wedding story, and offered her personal guidance in choosing a wedding dress. This collaboration continued when Melania would later announce her pregnancy with Barron.
Yet to the disappointment of many, Melania did not appear on the cover of Vogue during her time as First Lady, while Democrats First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both received their own covers. Turning down an actual supermodel, where designer clothes are best fit and professional connections precede them, fashion magazine companies would rather choose partisan loyalties to actual sartorial quality and authenticity of strong fashion journalism.
Nevertheless, in the run-up to her wedding, Melania visited every major couture fashion house in Paris, looking for the perfect dress. Her search finally led her to John Galliano, former creative director for Dior and Givenchy, known for creating some of the most iconic looks in fashion history. Melania describes the dress: “The strapless Dior gown, adorned with fifteen hundred pearls and rhinestones, was a true masterpiece. With its thirteen-foot train and sixteen-foot veil, the dress weighed nearly sixty pounds. I instantly knew it was the one.” Duh.
After the ceremony, Donald and Melania stepped into a Maybach and arrived at Mar-a-Lago for a grandiose reception laced with epitomes of New York high society. By that point Melania had slipped into a dress made by New York fashion designer Vera Wang. Famous French Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten supplied the catering, and Tony Bennett and Billy Joel entertainment, singing love songs throughout the night. Melania recalls the memory, “Billy Joel gave a special rendition of ‘The Lady is a Tramp’, humorously changing the lyrics to reference Donald Trump.” I highly doubt Madison Square Garden has heard that rendition of ‘The Lady is a Trump’.
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After the wedding, pregnant with Barron, Anna Wintour gave Melania another Vogue cover to celebrate motherhood. Representing the beauty of the changing female body, renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz shot the cover in Palm Beach. “‘I think it’s very sexy for a woman to be pregnant,’ [Melania] told the readers of Vogue, making clear that I believe that a pregnant woman is very attractive.”
But beyond her social status in New York City, Melania’s modeling career gave her unique access to the best visionaries in modern fashion which she strategically used as a mouthpiece for her ideals and opinions, showing fashion as a form of communication through deep symbolism.
Later, when visiting Paris as First Lady, Melania represented the friendship between the United States and France by wearing a suit from American designer Michael Kors, and a hat from French-American designer Herve Pierre, followed by a Coco Chanel gown later that same evening. While visiting the Pope in the Vatican City, Melania chose a Dolce & Gabbana outfit with a matching veil. Who would have thought international relations would be possible through couture?
As for the media, Melania sent a clear message through her wardrobe choices. Who can forget the First Lady’s most memorable statement piece: “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?”. Melania sported the $39 Zara jacket at the apex of hysteria over the border retention policy crisis in 2018, when the media was claiming that children were being separated from their parents at detention centers. Wearing the infamous jacket drew widespread attention and debate – which Melania fully intended. Although her press secretary at the time told mainstream media that the jacket was simply “a fashion choice with no underlying message,” Melania straightens the record in her book that she “never instructed her to provide misinformation” and that she had fully intended to use her fashion choice to make a statement about her disregard for the media’s lies and skewed narratives.
Nearly as memorable amongst Melania’s sartorial choices is the dress she wore on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017. As her husband was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, she chose a powder blue dress designed exclusively for her by iconic all-Americana fashion designer Ralph Lauren.
Many forget the deep controversy swirling around the dressing of the First Lady for this particular day. Designers like Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, and others refused to dress her, according to Teen Vogue in 2017. Such a short-sighted decision based on partisan lines should be disqualifying, especially when the First Lady herself is a former supermodel. Ralph Lauren stepped up to the task, and designed a look reminiscent of the timeless elegance of former First Lady Jackie Kennedy.
As Harper’s Bazaar wrote in 2017: “The slim-cut mock turtleneck dress and cropped cutaway jacket — with tonal suede gloves, pumps, and a clutch handbag to match — constituted a nod to Jackie Kennedy’s similarly ladylike ensemble during John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inauguration. The choice seemed to bespeak the First Lady’s implicit declaration of her commitment to this new, dignified, perhaps unexpected position she now assumes — to serving a nation that is not natively hers but which it is now her charge to represent before the world.”
There’s no question that Jackie Kennedy, an icon of high fashion often clad in Coco Chanel and oversized sunglasses, and perhaps the closest equivalent to modern American royalty, was a great source of inspiration for Melania. Melania says so herself: “In 1999, when asked what kind of First Lady I would be if Donald became president, I said I would be very traditional, like Jackie Kennedy.”
Melania Trump with her son, Barron, during President Trump's first inauguration, Washington D.C. (January 20, 2017)
Melania Trump with her son, Barron, during President Trump's first inauguration, Washington D.C. (January 20, 2017) / Melania Trump next to her husband during French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to the US, Washington D.C. (April 24, 2018) / Melania Trump, First Lady of the USA, visits the pyramids in Giza, Cairo (October 6, 2018)
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Jackie Kennedy’s tenure as First Lady saw her preserving and educating the public about the White House art collection and taking charge of restorations of the building itself.
Melania adopted a similar hands-on approach during her time as First Lady. Informed by past experiences with unreliable speechwriters and staff, she took personal responsibility for ensuring that every task met her standards and approval, overseeing almost every White House dinner and event. She also initiated significant restoration projects inside the White House, meticulously cataloging specific rooms and historic pieces, restoring flooring and designing suitable accessories, such as rugs, for high-traffic areas that had suffered wear and tear. “We all shared a common goal: to balance the preservation of the past with the needs of the present and to ensure the continuation of tradition well into the future.”
Recognizing her role was not to turn the White House into Trump Tower, but rather to preserve its original beauty and restore it for generations to come, Melania committed herself to a labor of love that went largely unseen by the public.
It’s clear from her personal life and tenure as First Lady that achieving high standards is something she expects from herself, and anything short of perfection is an opportunity for improvement in the future. Melania is someone who, in her tastemaking, duties, and self-care, only expects the very best of herself and those around her. So it is no surprise that one of her initiatives as First Lady was the Be Best initiative: an attempt to prioritize elements of “well-being of children, online safety, and tackling opioid abuse.”
Unfortunately, despite her efforts to connect with influential figures in Big Tech and social media, Melania’s attempts were largely unsuccessful. Still, other world leaders’ wives, such as Brigitte Macron and Belgium’s Queen Mathilde, showed an interest in bringing similar initiatives to their own countries.
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Melania’s dedication to improving the lives of women — particularly mothers — along with the education and safety of their children reflects her traditional yet impactful approach to altruism and the priority she places on family.
Throughout Melania’s life, her commitment to caring for her family — her aging parents, her son Barron, and her husband Donald Trump — highlights her character. She’s not simply an entrepreneurial and cosmopolitan woman pursuing her personal ambitions, but someone who embraces her roles as a wife, mother, and daughter. In today’s feminist landscape, these identities are often undervalued in favor of professional metrics of success.
But Melania has successfully combined both worlds: she is a mother and homemaker who has also succeeded in pursuing her personal and professional goals. Why wouldn’t Vogue want to write about this modern woman?
In an interview with Marc Beckman, host of the ‘Some Future Day’ podcast, Melania emphasized her commitment to excellence and also how the value of “self-love” has enabled her to care for herself and others around her. Self-care allows her to be the best version of herself, which in turn enables her to provide for her loved ones. Throughout the stories she shares — from her childhood to the recent experience of being the wife of a former president who faced an assassination attempt — Melania exemplifies a rare resilience and steadfastness among today’s prominent women.
Having built her career and family in New York City, Melania remains committed to America. She advocates for her adopted country with a deep sense of patriotism, drawing inspiration from the same entrepreneurial and driven spirit that defines her city.
Most recently, at Trump’s Madison Square Garden campaign rally on October 27th, 2024, Melania made a rare appearance to support her husband and pay tribute to the great city – the city that allowed her to become who she is:
“Our hometown, where architectural symbols of strength, courage, and unity create a canvas for the world’s indisputable capital of industry, where titans of finance, fashion, and entertainment, convene among an iconic range of superior design structures and artistic accomplishments… It is you, who are the heartbeat of this great metropolis. It is you, who is the pulse of this great America, yet New York City is unforgiving. In fact, our lives are complicated even during the best of times… For generations, this town has produced America’s most fearless leaders, whose marks changed the course of the world. New York City and America need their magic back.”
Melania’s story, as someone who came to New York seeking opportunity and found it, along with her future-forward empowerment of mothers and children, provides a model for recovering it. For Trump’s Second Administration, the industry leaders and influencers should set their partisan biases aside, and choose excellence and culture as their focus by highlighting this rare woman. The 2024 election showed that American voters want cultural leaders to return to real American quality, rather than blind loyalty to progressive ideology. The elite worlds which once held Donald Trump in such esteem should embrace him again along with the first foreign-born, supermodel, New York socialite First Lady to recapture the spirit of the American dream as seen in her own story.
