Melania Trump is smarter than many think
One wonders: What advice would you give Melania Trump as the First Lady of the United States? And I'm sure she'll do just fine. Any immigrant who starts working as a teenager and successfully survives in the US is smart.
By all accounts, she speaks five languages, but many people, especially those who hate the Trumps, don't consider her smart. Like her husband, who will undoubtedly do things differently in Congress, Melania will bring a new air to the White House. She is a beautiful woman, in the distance, and if she has had cosmetic surgery in the past, she is something that she no longer needs. She, too, should dress somewhat casually and avoid outfits that flatter her figure. Her slender silhouette will shine with any dress or simple combination.
When she has on occasion been asked what she would like to look like as First Lady, the First Lady has replied that she would like to be her as Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy. In fact, her Melania has a touch of glamor and she could emulate Jackie Kennedy. She won't do any harm to introduce a little fresh air into a White House where, for most of the last three decades, she has ruled the bourgeois atmosphere of the Bushes and the Clintons, and the politically correct Obamas.
Trump, a gentleman?
In the style of a football coach, Donald Trump has the buttons on his jacket undone. His takeover showed that the same thing happens with his coat. This also highlights that he wears his shiny monochrome ties several inches below his waist. Can a man who dresses like this be considered a gentleman? Would you be accepted as a member of one of his clubs?
President Trump has his coat buttons undone because he needs flexibility to gesture with his arms, something he does permanently like a mechanical puppet, as he sticks out his thumb and forefinger. As if he were reading a teleprompter, he moves his arms from left to right while he expresses himself, with a broken voice, with the colloquial jargon that has defined his electoral victory. More than any other president or politician before him, Trump has reduced political language to the lowest common denominator of him, which is not exactly the image of a gentleman.
But Trump does not want to have the image of a gentleman. He has deliberately decided to rub shoulders with the working classes. So his appearance, like that of a soccer coach, is a sign that he connects with the common people, which frees him from the need to button up his buttons to give an appearance of formality and superiority. Trump's fluorescent red and blue ties -- unusually long, pinless, loose, and tetrahedron knotted -- are a sign of rebellion against official style.
All of these subtle deviations from the norm are appealing visual cues to a new generation of voters, crying out for a change from the rigidity and condescension with which politicians have traditionally addressed public opinion. I wonder if these are not all carefully planned moves by Trump. If so, we are facing the modern Machiavelli.
I would invite Trump to any of my clubs, since none of them are exclusive. I've always liked the members to be different, and not one-dimensional. Trump would be much more interesting on average than the rest of the members, and he would bring a lot of joviality and absurd situations, I hope, to the club. Gone are the days when clubs were made up of an intimate network of old shoe shiners, and today they are confined to the oldest corners of historic metropolises. I adore them, but they are disappearing.
Trump would get a hairnet. He will soon realize that as president of the United States, he will have less and less time to take care of his bushy hair. A hairnet would maximize efforts to maintain his hairstyle. I would include a photograph of Ena Sharples in the British series Coronation Street as an example of how to wear it.
