By Celia Walden
When, at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998, young Melania Knauss first laid eyes on a twice-divorced property mogul with hair that bore unlikely similarities to spun-sugar dessert toppings – the style not so much cosmetic as gastronomic – she refused to give him her number. "You give me yours," the 28-year-old model said, "and I will call you."
"I wanted to see what kind of number he would give me," she told Harper's Bazaar years later. In what most women would agree was seduction kamikaze, Donald Trump gave the Slovenian spitfire all of his numbers, "the office, Mar-a-Lago, home in New York – everything". Melania called him, married him, bore him a son – and might soon become his First Lady.
Following the 69-year-old multi-billionaire's unlikely electoral coup last week to become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, America's opinion-makers have stopped using Melania as a punch-line to their mirth-soaked fantasies about what a Donald Trump presidency might look like, and seriously started to question what kind of a First Lady she would make.
"Dismiss her at your peril," insiders warn. "She's beautiful, sassy and smart – and she's got everything it takes to be the new Jackie Kennedy."
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.Credit: AP
The beauty and the sass we know about. And it's true that the daughter of a car dealership manager and clothing designer from the town of Novo Mesto in Communist Yugoslavia only took up modelling professionally – posing for photographers such as Mario Testino and Helmut Newton, and working in Paris and Milan – after completing a university degree in architecture and design in Ljubljana.
Childhood friends remember the tall, honey-limbed and feral-eyed young woman as being obsessed by Western fashion magazines, which she would flick through constantly, but entrepreneurial, too: sketching her own clothing designs, getting her mother and sister to make them into clothing and selling her own jewellery.
Even when she moved to New York in 1996, Melania never drank, partied or smoked (like her future husband, who has never touched alcohol, tobacco or drugs).
She was also smart enough to play by immigration rules from the moment she first touched down in the US, flying back to Europe every few months to get her visa stamped and applying for US citizenship in 2006, the year after she married Trump (in a $100,000 Dior dress in Palm Beach, witnessed by Bill and Hillary Clinton, among others). This makes her the beguiling face of apolitical immigration – and living proof that her husband's xenophobia doesn't extend to very beautiful women with vital statistics of 36-26-35.
Melania Trump in her reliable first lady-style sheath. Credit: Julie Jacobson/AP
Thanks to all that travelling, Melania is fluent in English, French, Serbian and German, and it is said that her reluctance to speak publicly is less to do with timidity than a desire to be an unobtrusive but supportive political spouse. "I'm choosing not to go political in public because that is my husband's job," she has said, telling journalists that she is none the less "very political in private life".
Insiders, however, assure me this last part is not entirely true. "Although Melania's often compared to Carla [Sarkozy], because of their modelling backgrounds, she's not as culturally informed or political as the former French First Lady, and has zero political aspirations. There's certainly no danger of her doing a Hillary and trying get her foot inside the door of the West Wing."
While deriders may sneer that the only place Melania will be putting that foot is in a $600 Louboutin, to many Americans tired of "his-and-hers" presidential couples, that may seem preferable to an overly political spouse. And it's hard to critique a woman whose prime motivations are her husband and 10-year-old son, Barron, or "mini-Donald" as she calls him, because "he fired nannies and he fired housekeepers".
Indeed, Kate Andersen Brower, author of the bestseller First Women, believes Mrs Trump has already perfected an appealing Fifties First Lady persona, although comparisons to Jacqueline Kennedy may be wide of the mark. "Jackie was actually intimately aware of what was happening in her husband's administration, and during the Cuban Missile Crisis often acted as a sounding board for him.
"So Melania reminds me more of Mamie Eisenhower. Mamie said: 'Being a wife is the best career life has to offer a woman'. And I think it's interesting that even though Melania has posed nude on a bearskin rug, she would be taking us back to an earlier era of First Ladies, who focused almost all of their time on their husband's happiness."
The image in question was featured in a kitsch GQ shoot in 2000. "She was enormously keen to be in GQ, as was Trump himself," recalls the magazine's editor Dylan Jones. "So we pushed the envelope a little and photographed her naked and handcuffed to a briefcase in Trump's private jet – we were surprised she said yes.
"What kind of First Lady would she make? Probably a very good one. It's her husband I'm worried about."
Should Trump triumph over Clinton in November, Hollywood (which has never mistrusted any career based on genetics, luck and tenacity) will all too easily shift its allegiances to the picturesque Mrs Trump. However silent she remains, there's no doubt that Melania has the star power every modern First Lady needs, says LA talent manager John Ferriter.
"She would be a cross between Jackie and the Duchess of Cambridge," he says. "She doesn't put herself first, she's protective of her family, and she will bring her own sense of fashion into the White House.
"Also, she's clearly mingled with all kinds of people and has maintained an air of mystery about herself."
Asked on the campaign trail in March what the world could expect from her if Trump is elected, Melania said: "We are in the 21st century. I will be me. I will be different than any other First Ladies. I will help women. I will help children. They are the future."
It's just possible she has a point.
Melania's fashion moves
The 'I'm-too-important-to-put-my-coat-on' move
Melania shows dedication to that fashionable affectation, the shoulder robe, and is admirably skilled at balancing a coat on her shoulders instead of the pedestrian act of putting her arms through the sleeves. On stage in Iowa, after introducing her husband, she stepped back from the lectern and flicked that perfect blow-dry over her shoulder – all without her bright red coat budging an inch.
Adopting patriotic primary colours
Following in the footsteps of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, whose wardrobe became known as "Republican Red", Trump has worked red, white and blue cannily into her campaign wardrobe. She's even been seen with a sequinned stars-and-stripes clutch bag.
Rocking RPH (that's Rich Person Hair)
Her waves hit a blow-dry note somewhere between Mid-town and Mid-West, offering an air of girlish glamour to her straight-faced pout. No wonder she and her husband have separate bathrooms.
Never dressing down
A woman who was married in a couture dress from Dior was never going to embrace high-street dressing. Favourite designers include Valentino, Alexander McQueen and Michael Kors; last week she was spotted doing the school run in Christian Louboutins.
Telegraph, London