by Kate Bennett
Melania also has a trusted makeup artist whom she uses not so much for trips but for events and major photo shoots, including for her official portrait. Like Alvow, Nicole Bryl met Melania more than a decade ago on a photo shoot for a magazine—specifically, the story Melania did for People just after Barron was born. And, also like Alvow, the two had great chemistry and trust, which was all Melania needed from those she let into her very small private world. Bryl also had to make Melania look great, which she did by keeping Melania in a year-round state of perpetual bronze glow. Bryl likes to fangirl a bit over her most famous client, but she is protective of her, once in an interview going off on people who judge Melania the person because of her husband’s political views. “The only one who gets flustered about this sort of talk is me, and those who know her and care for her the most,” said Bryl, who posts photos of Melania with some frequency on her Instagram page, tagging the captions with heart emojis and x’s and o’s, and the occasional “my Queen.”
As with Alvow, Melania doesn’t need Bryl to do her makeup. Surprisingly, she often does it herself, which is a feat she mastered years ago when she made the transition from working model to Donald Trump’s girlfriend. Today, it is oftentimes she who applies her thick, long false eyelashes, perfectly, at the ends of her shaded lids, which are usually dark slate gray, just a hint of silvery shine across the brow bone.
It was Bryl who spilled the beans about Melania’s significant renovation of the White House residence’s beauty salon area, called the Cosmetology Room since Pat Nixon was first lady. Bryl dished to Us Weekly before Inauguration Day, “Melania wants a room with the most perfect lighting scenario, which will make our jobs as a creative team that much more efficient, since great lighting can make or break any look.”
The resulting room is all pristine white—Melania’s favorite, clean palette. A large crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling, because it is a glam room, after all, and she is a Trump. A giant flat-screen television is mounted on the wall as well, so Melania can watch “whatever she chooses” while she does her hair and makeup, which typically takes well over an hour, start to finish.
It is here that Melania sometimes does tune in to CNN, and, like her husband, she is avid about taking notes when she feels news reports unfairly paint her in a negative light. Other reporters and I who cover her are no strangers to real-time e-mails or texts from Grisham, asking about a certain story angle, headline, or chyron. While Melania doesn’t particularly care about many things, she does read her press—and she knows the bylines of and backgrounds and beats of everyone who writes about her. This year, in Brussels for NATO, I had the chance to shout a question to Trump, simply because I was stationed where I could watch the leaders and spouses enter a dinner. I asked the president how he felt his day of meetings had gone (it was the day he had whipped up a frenzy about relations between Germany and Russia). Trump stopped, looked at me, looked at my CNN-branded microphone, and looked back at me. He was puzzled because he didn’t know who I was, hadn’t seen me often enough before to place my face; he knew every other West Wing CNN reporter, trust me, but I was new to him. Melania held a smile. “Very good. Beautiful. Really well,” said Trump to me, adding he was having a “very good time at NATO.” The first couple then proceeded inside for the private dinner, but I learned from a dinner attendee that later Trump had turned to Melania and asked who I was, and she gave him my name and said that I primarily focus my reporting not on him but on her.
Yet unlike her husband, Melania isn’t a complete and total news junkie when she does turn on the television. She’s prone to the occasional binge-watch (she was hooked for a while on The Crown), and she has said in the past that her favorite show is How to Get Away with Murder.
What she watches and what she does when she’s in the presence of her hair and makeup people aren’t all that different from what other women in this country do with the people who see them, quite literally, at their most bare. She is honest and funny and forthcoming. There is gossip, there is chatter about celebrities and pop culture and headlines. This is a safe zone.
Melania treats Pierre and Alvow and Bryl much the same way Michelle Obama treated her glam squad of Meredith Koop, Johnny Wright (her hairstylist), and Carl Ray (her makeup artist). Obama brought the three into her inner circle, where they remain to this day, with the exception of Wright, who was replaced on hair-care duties by one of his protégés, Yene Damtew. Damtew worked with Michelle when she was first lady, but typically assisting Wright or focusing on Malia and Sasha Obama. Damtew stepped into the top spot after Obama left the White House (and Wright moved to Los Angeles) and has remained Obama’s chief hair guru. In September 2017, Obama made a rare social appearance, attending the opening party for Damtew’s small new salon in Arlington, Virginia. Obama’s support for Damtew, Ray, Koop, and Wright is, like Melania’s for her own team, genuine, thoughtful, and trusted.
When you’re a first lady, new friendships are hard, if not impossible, and finding some way to connect to anyone who doesn’t understand the life in the fishbowl is also incredibly rare. That both Melania and Michelle bonded so tightly with their beauty team is not a coincidence. Although the relationship is employer/employee (both women pay for their glam teams with their own money; they are not taxpayer funded), there is a deep bond of loyalty that goes beyond a paycheck. They are paid minimally, but they accept the skimpy salary because they serve at the pleasure of the first lady of the United States, and they’re seeing the world and quietly becoming famous on their own, with the knowledge that after her tenure, they can, and should, smartly parlay their lean years of White House tutelage into a more profitable job.
But while it’s ongoing, the FLOTUS glam squad is on the same hectic schedule as their boss, being shuttled from place to place, surrounded by armed Secret Service agents, reading the same headlines about what’s being worn and why and what it means.
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For Melania, the fashion stories are constant. A few things contribute to the fascination beyond your average first lady, of course. Melania was a fashion model. She has been defined for most of her adult life by what she wears. And there is the obvious wealth and luxury level in which she operates, and which influences her choices. She’s been a celebrity for close to two decades—C-list, perhaps, for the bulk of that time, but a celebrity nonetheless.
For Michelle Obama, the transition from corporate lawyer to fashionable-yet-approachable FLOTUS was quite simply more groundbreaking than Melania’s path, if only because people were already looking at her (and judging Melania) solely by what she looked like. Obama had to create and cultivate a sense of style that worked for her, without breaking budgets or putting it too far out of reach for the average American woman—and she very much succeeded. For Hillary Clinton, fashion was the annoying reality of being a woman in the political spotlight. Years ago I once interviewed Nina McLemore, who designs the primary-color power suits worn frequently by Clinton (and Elizabeth Warren and Valerie Jarrett and others). You’ve seen the ones I’m talking about: bright shades, long jackets, stand-up collars, turned-up sleeves at the cuff. McLemore is a fashion realist when it comes to women of authority, and her goal is to literally design an outfit that no one notices, a jacket so utilitarian that it’s a non–talking point. Pretty much the exact opposite of Melania Trump, or even Michelle Obama. For Hillary Clinton, what she wore had to, by desire and necessity, be irrelevant. McLemore is good at making decent-looking, incredibly irrelevant clothes.
Because of her background and her years being scrutinized by old-money Manhattan doyennes as she circled the wealthy landscape of New York on the arm of Donald Trump, Melania is hyperaware of what she wears, what it means, and how it fits. Now, she is also clued in to the fact that she must shed the public perception of her, an almost insurmountable task: going from naked model to first lady of the United States is a fairly remarkable, and historically unprecedented, undertaking. She approaches it with daily consideration to the event, he
r role, what’s expected of her, and how much she likes something. In some ways, her current mode of belted coat dresses and tailored suiting separates is antithetical to the Melania of even ten or fifteen years ago, when she would accompany Trump to an event in a barely-there slip dress or cloaked in a fur cape, fashion choices that could be an entire course of study at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
As first lady, her dresses are typically A-line, with a tight bodice, sleeves or sleeveless, and a billowing skirt. To keep track of what she has on, both for clarity of repetition and historical record, there is a notebook kept as a diary of each look, updated by one of her communications staff members. Often a look is chosen weeks in advance for big events or trips, though Melania has been known to change her mind at the last minute and do her own thing. If that happens, the notebook gets updated.
I remember how quickly my in-box filled at work when Melania appeared at her first White House Easter Egg Roll (remember, at that point she wasn’t yet living in Washington, so a Melania sighting at the White House was like seeing a chupacabra). I think people thought she might appear in a tight Hervé Léger cocktail dress, a strapless mini of some sort? Instead, she wore a tea-length, light pink dress with flowing organza layers in the skirt and a simple tank-shaped bodice, designed by Pierre specially for the occasion. It was casual and sweet, feminine and pristine—like a mom should be, if she was in the 1950s and about to serve lemonade to a bunch of kids. “What a weird choice,” friends and coworkers said to me. “Her dress is so not like her!” was another note. But reclassifying herself sartorially as a “proper” middle-aged woman will be a long and uphill road for Melania, and the frothy dresses, demure hemlines, and pastel palettes go a long way in making that possible. She has been successful in letting people assume what she might wear and then appearing in something radically different from what’s expected. The dismantling of an image as indelible as her wearing a see-through Lucite bodysuit in a fashion spread almost twenty years ago, let’s face it, requires some thought.
Out of the gate, she defined what her style would be, mostly tailored looks and belted suits and coats, with the occasional dress or evening gown thrown into rotation. I recall the Alice Roi coatdress Melania wore to the prayer breakfast and services at the National Cathedral during inauguration weekend and, knowing she would be photographed from behind, her insistence on the perfect triangle bell shape the back would make. Roi said dressing Melania was easy because she has inherently good taste and is “meticulous, impeccable, simple and not glitzy.”
Melania’s style helped immensely on her first overseas trip with Trump in 2017. Ahead of the travel, which included stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Belgium, and Italy, Melania studied intensely. She knew where she would be going and whom she would be visiting, and she also had noted how previous first ladies had dressed for similar trips. By that time in Trump’s presidency, with no major public speaking roles under her belt, no formally announced first lady “platform,” and no particular reason to go besides accompanying her husband, Melania understood it was important to lead with her looks—a no-brainer approach she’d picked up as a young girl in Slovenia, where it was her beauty that caught attention.
In the days before her departure for the Middle East and Europe, Melania’s small staff of helpers packed for her, assigning a separate bag for each outfit for every single one of her events. Pierre had been instrumental in the final run-through of looks, making sure each detail was finalized and each piece was impeccably tailored. Melania’s luggage is always packed into her Louis Vuitton suitcases, trunks, and hanging bags, and for trips like this one, they often take up an entire separate vehicle. On the LV bags are her custom luggage tags. She has tan leather ones embossed with gold initials, MTK, for Melania Trump Knauss, and others made in red, the letters FLOTUS in gold across the middle. That government van with all its precious fashion cargo is then driven to Andrews Air Force Base ahead of the president and first lady, with the rest of the trip’s necessities, and pulled up to the doors of Air Force One, where each piece, carefully and discreetly labeled and organized to prevent confusion, is loaded onto the plane.
Melania had spent time getting information from State Department officials regarding wardrobe protocol for each country on the journey, and her outfits reflected immense care and detail as a result. While Trump stuck to his ubiquitous oversize Brioni suits and way-too-long ties, Melania stepped off the plane at the couple’s first stop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wearing a black, long-sleeve, wide-legged Stella McCartney jumpsuit, reminiscent of an abaya, the loose, robe-like garment worn by Islamic women in the region. However modest the gesture of solidarity, it was present. And not to leave anyone out, Melania accessorized her jumpsuit with an oversize, $485 python-embossed Yves Saint Laurent belt. Naturally, it was gold. As if to say, “Hey, Saudi Arabia, friend. We like gold, you like gold—we get you. Everything is cool.” That evening at a private formal dinner with Saudi royals, Melania again reflected the traditional covered-up dress of the women in her host nation, with a cape-sleeve raspberry floor-length gown by Reem Acra and a diamond collar necklace.
That first trip overseas showcased other important fashion diplomacy and heralded Melania Trump on the global stage in an appropriate and style-savvy way. For her audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican, Melania wore a black lace dress with matching black lace overcoat by Dolce and Gabbana, her hair up and discreetly covered by a black lace mantilla. For other events it was coatdresses by Michael Kors, a tan leather suit by a Belgian designer while in Brussels, and a shimmery silver evening dress for a closing dinner with Trump in Italy. It was all very high-fashion, but the takeaway headline would be the $51,500 Dolce and Gabbana jacket at the G7 summit, a price tag she would neither explain nor live down.
Grisham, Melania’s spokeswoman, and Melania herself, often grow frustrated with all the focus on her fashion. It’s a double-edged sword, though, and thanks in large part to her predecessor, whose looks made her a powerful force in the fashion industry by association, Melania must contend with observers of her style. She might get frustrated with everyone talking about how she looks, but the simple fact is, her appearance is something Melania excels at, and as a former model, it’s what she knows. Part of the job is very much about what a first lady wears, and in this age of bloggers and style watchers and red carpet vultures, the scrutiny is unavoidable.
In Africa in October, her looks were particularly bold, almost costume-like. On safari in Kenya, she looked like she’d borrowed from Meryl Streep’s Karen Blixen in the movie Out of Africa. Jodhpurs, crisp white shirt, knee-high brown leather boots, and, yes, that white pith helmet—it was all, well, a little much. The helmet would see her crucified in the press, as it recalled for many Africans a painful time in the continent’s history. Colonialists were avid wearers of the pith helmet, and sporting one, even without intentionally sending a message, was unforgivable. For someone as meticulous as Melania is about observing history and custom, it was a definite misstep.
Along for the Africa trip, I hadn’t noticed the helmet when we first saw the first lady that particular day. We were ushered to the Shelldrick Animal Preservation Reserve to hold for her arrival—she was to feed a small herd of orphaned and rescued baby elephants—and when she finally appeared, clutching a giant baby bottle of milk to stick into the mouths of eager elephants, she wasn’t wearing the hat. But as we moved to phase 2 of the day, piling into open-air Land Rovers for a safari (or, safari lite, really, with Nairobi’s skyline in the distance and Secret Service agents dotted throughout the bush, it was hardly the stuff of the wild), our two press vehicles pulled close enough to Melania’s rover to note she had added the pith helmet to her ensemble.
What struck me wasn’t the hat, however, but more how alone she seemed. It was just her and her safari guide and a couple of Secret Service agents. She was shooting photos with her iPhone, just like any of us would, and each time we would spot a herd of zebras or pull up as close as we could to
a giraffe, her vehicle would come to a stop and she would sit and stare, quietly, keenly aware of how she must have looked in profile to our cameras. Her chin jutted out just slightly, her eyes a tad squinty, her arm resting gently on the side of the vehicle, she looked as though she was posing for an imaginary glossy magazine.
It should be noted that so far, there has indeed been no splashy spread of the first lady in the pages of Vogue—although sister Condé Nast publication Vanity Fair did ask if they could send along a writer and a photographer on the Africa trip. The request was denied.
Compared with Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush, all of whom had several features in Vogue through the years, Melania hasn’t been treated well in the pages of the fashion bible thus far. Nor have writers on Vogue’s digital pages been kind; they’ve hammered her with unflattering headlines after her events, mocking her outfits, her relationship with Trump, and her sporadic adherence to traditional first lady rites of passage.
Of course, should she have wanted a Vogue feature or Vanity Fair, Melania would have had to consent to an interview for the magazine, and she could obviously be asked about everything from her husband’s infidelities to her unconventional attitude toward her role, and his. I would imagine with the promise of a Vogue cover (something Wintour never promises to anyone), Melania might have been coaxed to participate, but it’s now a moot point, even though I am told Wintour has asked more than once that Melania be in the magazine, no matter what her public protestations have been. Indeed, Vogue’s fabled editrix has extended the invitation for Melania to be in the fashion bible’s pages, and it has been Melania who has said no, says my source. Mainly because, like Trump, she believes the magazine is not loyal.