Melania Trump, all the secrets of the first lady: from the clothes worn in rebellion to the room far from that of her husband Donald
Trousers in spite of her husband. The blouse for solidarity with women. The jacket as a dig at Ivanka. Melania's style choices contain a precise political meaning: or so says Kate Bennett, a journalist who has been covering the First Lady for years and who reveals her secrets in her book, just released in the United States, "Free, Melania: a unauthorized biography ".
Although she has lived the last three years with the eyes of the world on her, Melania Trump has always remained discreet and mysterious, very jealous of her privacy. Slovenian, 49, in 1996 she crossed the ocean to work as a model in the United States. Nine years later she married Donald Trump (with whom she had a son, Barron) and the following year she became a full-fledged American citizen. She is icy and flawless, she has rarely indulged in statements and comments, and even more rarely in manifestations of affection for her husband, unlike the Obamas, often photographed in tender hugs. According to the author of the book, her coats resting on her shoulders serve precisely to prevent him from taking her by the hand: her arms remain discreetly inside her. And again: President Trump loves to see his wife dressed in sensual and tight-fitting clothes. So she, when she wants to express disappointment or annoyance, would wear pants.
Fashion as a weapon of protest, private and political. On the evening of the debate against Hillary Clinton, in October 2016, Melania wore a pink silk Gucci blouse with a bow, a model called "Pussy Bow Blouse": just a few hours earlier a recording had leaked in which her husband he boasted of taking women "by the pussy", that is, from the private parts. Not a coincidence, says the journalist. Another example is the military green jacket worn when visiting children detained without parents at the Mexican border. Zara's jacket had written in large letters on the back: "I really don't care, do u?" What does it mean: I don't care, you? At the time it was said that it was a dig at politicians who criticized her, but according to Bennet it was a way to give her stepdaughter Ivanka, who often acts like a second First Lady, abusing her position. Their relationship, the book reads, would progressively worsen since she entered the White House.
Despite the strict protocol and the omnipresent secret services (the President's family can neither open the windows, nor adjust the thermostat in the house independently) Melania still managed to carve out her own space, a spacious suite on a different floor from the one where she sleeps the husband. Not only do they not divide the bed, but not even the corridor. The only mystery that the author does not reveal is that comma in the title: instead of an appeal "Liberate Melania" it becomes a signature "Free, Melania" Why?
