That girl named Melania Trump
Today Melania Trump is the aspiring first lady of the United States. But she Grazia talked to those who she met her when she was just a shy model, with clear ideas and the habit of not giving anyone her phone number. At least until she met her husband Donald
Forget the Cinderella tale. The star of Melanija Knavs, third wife of billionaire Donald Trump and possible future First Lady of the United States, begins to shine before meeting her prince of hers, now a candidate for president of the United States for the Republicans. Forget, therefore, the image of the poor Slovenian girl without art or part of her who lands in Europe and then in America with many dreams and few hopes.
It is true that when she was born in 1970 Slovenia was still part of the former Yugoslavia and people were not doing so well. But her family was somewhat privileged. His father Viktor had a car dealership, was often on the road and always dressed in a suit and tie, except on Sundays when he polished his vintage Mercedes, an indispensable ritual. Mamma Amalia worked in a textile industry and had a passion for fashion. She designed her clothes for herself and for her two beautiful daughters, Melanija and the eldest daughter Ines, and made them herself. The two girls were always perfectly combed, tidy, the most elegant of Sevnica, the town of 5,000 inhabitants an hour from the capital, Ljubljana, where the Knavs family lived.
Melanija makes her first fashion show at 5, with all the support of mom and dad. Her first photo shoot was at 16. "I saw her on the street, she struck me and offered her to audition and then pose for a clothing catalog, but I had to insist on making her say yes", there says Slovenian photographer Stane Jerko. “She showed up in the studio in faded jeans, trainers and a ponytail. She did not know how to stay in front of the lens, but she understood what I was saying and put it into practice. I could not portray her in full length because she had huge feet, an abundant 41, and in the studio I had no shoes she could wear. ”Quite the opposite of Cinderella.
Melanija, in the 80s, has other plans for her future. She thinks neither of a rich husband nor of making it as a model. She wants to finish high school and prepare as best she can for the admission test to the faculty of architecture at the University of Ljubljana. She wants to follow in the footsteps of her sister Ines and become a designer. In the meantime, however, you are participating in the Slovenian edition of Look of the Year, the competition for aspiring models invented by John Casablancas, historical patron of the Elite agency. She takes second place.
And 1992 arrives. Slovenia is an independent state, but too small to allow it to build a future in the world of fashion. It is time to leave behind their roots and to change the name, to make it more international: Melanjia becomes Melania, Knavs is Germanized into Knauss, perhaps because two of the superstar supermodels of the moment, Claudia Schiffer and Heidi Klum, are German.
«Melania has won over the others with simplicity. This is her strong point », model Bernie Marovt, born a few kilometers from Mrs. Trump's country, tells Grazia. “I did my first audition with Stane Jerko, like Melania. I moved to Milan and I too joined the stable of Riccardo Gay, a famous modeling agency. Compared to the other girls, Melania hit the face with soap and water and the manner of someone who has few crickets in her head ”, says Marovt that today she has two bearing schools, one in Slovenia and one in Italy, the Donnakademy. «In Italy, however, Melania did not break through. In those years there was a lot of work, but also a lot of competition and she was certainly not the type to show off too much ".
The turning point comes when Melania goes to New York. The man who takes her to the big Apple and introduces Donald Trump to her is Italian, his name is Paolo Zampolli. Owner of Paramount Realty Group (he sold a house to the state of Qatar for $ 34 million), he has been in business with Donald Trump in the past. To Grazia Zampolli he tells: «Melania has always been a perfect girl. In the Milan of fashion and parties that lasted day and night, she was a white fly: she didn't drink, didn't smoke, went to the gym. At the time I had a modeling agency, Id Models. Milan was the destination to intercept new faces. Melania was her and she is a very beautiful woman. When I hired her, I immediately took her to New York. After a few months, her face was on an entire Times Square building in an advertisement. "
We arrive at 1998. Melania Knauss is 28, Donald Trump 52. They meet at a Paolo Zampolli party at the Kit Kat Club in Manhattan. He is struck by her beauty and asks for her phone number, she refuses. "Donald arrived at the party accompanied by a lady, it didn't seem elegant to accept his court," Mrs. Trump will explain years later. «I preferred to get her number, this too is used to understand a man's intentions. He could only give me the “public” cell phone, the one he used for business and that many other people had ». Instead he gave her all of her contact details.
"I met Melania in New York at the end of the 90s, I photographed her when she was not yet Mrs. Trump and she had already done several jobs as a model", tells us Marco Glaviano, photographer and architect, who has immortalized the most famous tops model of the world and is now a family friend of the Trump family. "The evening they met I was there too. I remember that he was very impressed, after all she was amazing. But Melania also has a shy character, she is very close to her facts: I remember an Easter lunch, there must have been 100 people at the table and she never left her room ».
In fact, for much of her husband's election campaign, Melania remained on the sidelines, silent (despite her speaking four languages), leaving the spotlight and the role of potential first lady to Ivanka, the daughter Donald had with his first wife Ivana. "Melania and Ivanka get along well. Ivanka is a determined, smart woman, her father trusts her very much », Glaviano says. And he points out: «The Trump style can be excessive, their house on Fifth Avenue has a lot of gold everywhere. But they are a very close family and Melania is a simple woman ».
Marco Glaviano also attended Melania and Donald Trump's sensational wedding party on January 22, 2005 in Palm Beach, Florida. He was in a tuxedo. She, in a $ 100,000 Dior dress designed by John Galliano and decorated with 1,500 Swarovski crystals. A wedding cake with 3,000 roses and the voice of Billy Joel to cheer the guests. "There were 400 people," recalls the photographer. "And then Senator Hillary Clinton was among the guests." That is the woman who will challenge Trump in the race for the White House in November.
The following year, in 2006, Barron William Trump was born: the father chose the first name, the mother the second. The child is bilingual, he speaks both English and Slovenian. Melania now has a cook and a driver, but she doesn't want nannies. She wants to take care of her son directly. Barron is 10 years old and is always in a suit and tie. Like the father. And like his maternal grandfather, Viktor. "Little Donald", as his mother calls him, when he grows up he wants to become: "A businessman and a golfer".
Then politics began to complicate the life of the beautiful Melania. "It must have been difficult for her to speak at the Cleveland Convention, in front of millions of people and in a language that is not hers," Zampolli says. «I phoned her to say 'Brava'. If you did very well, you were wrong who prepared her notes by copying the words of Michelle Obama. " On the other hand, Melania admitted that Michelle is the woman she most admires. And by saying it, she showed that she was already thinking as a first lady.
