Bitchy Trudeau could learn from Melania
THE canary yellow Valentino cape she wore to Buckingham Palace saw her compared to the Caped Crusader, the butt of the joke. The red-and-white check number she wore to the lighting of the White House Christmas Tree saw her mocked again on Twitter. But there might be a method to Melania Trump’s mad sartorial choices. As a model she knows when to let her clothes do the talking, and when the global media is on permanent standby, that means, well, always.
Wearing the odd piece of overthe-top couture is a small price to pay for remaining elusive. Three years after she reluctantly ascended to the world stage, the woman who the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd calls the Slovenian Sphinx is still hiding in plain sight.
If it wasn’t for her dreadful husband, she could invoke those captivating doe-eyed stars from the silent movie era, a blank slate upon which the audience could project its hopes and dreams.
But because of him, it is impossible to relate to her on any level. For all the money and time she lavishes on her wardrobe, she will never be a style icon like Jackie
Kennedy. Her low-key demeanour will never be compared to Laura Bush’s and unless her husband’s presidency changes course dramatically she will never attract a scintilla of the adulation that is
Michelle Obama’s.
THE loathing he commands is like a stopcock preventing any flow of positivity or praise in her direction and that is fair enough, perhaps, because marrying him was her free choice.
At worst it makes her his enabler, or his zombified Stepford Wife who asks for nothing other than a ready supply of cash and the appearance of fidelity.
Yet while admittedly there have been mis-steps, like her wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words ‘I Don’t Care, Do You’, to a child detention centre, Melania has shown nothing but discretion and dignity in public, often in the face of provocation.
The London schoolchildren who made Christmas decorations with her were swept away by her grace and good humour.
It’s not the first time the FLOTUS has won over the crowds, particularly children who seem to like her cool and unflappable manner.
Aloofness is not a prized commodAnne, ity today, at least among adults. Angelina Jolie or George Clooney can’t just be admired for their craft, they also must be loved as paragons of human compassion.
Politicians must show emotion: The downfalls of Brian Cowen and Theresa May were partly explained by their lacking the charisma that has replaced achievement as the main pillar of popularity.
Yet this tendency to turn into craven people-pleasers can descend into juvenile and embarrassing territory.
The unedifying spectacle of world leaders sniggering at Donald Trump at a cocktail party showed how so-called high society has strayed from the gold standard of diplomatic protocol and etiquette.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s mockery of President Trump may have been mild enough but his feeling free to articulate it in front of figures like Princess Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson, shows that either he is a complete buffoon, or that, even on duty, our elected leaders and nonelected aristocrats enjoy a bitchfest as much as the next playground bully.
Compared to these pampered sons and daughters of privilege, Melania had a hardscrabble upbringing in Slovenia. It’s ironic that it is she who can be depended upon to behave properly .
Kate Bennett, the CNN reporter assigned solely to the first lady, admires her. In new book Free, Melania: The Unauthorised Biography, Bennett says that she respects her refusal to play the game of the political wife.
After the Stormy Daniels revelations, rather than manufacture a show of unity, Melania travelled in a different car than Trump to the State of the Union address.
There have been other occasions as in Tel Aviv, when she swatted Trump’s hand away in irritation.
Surely, the least that can be said of Melania’s legacy is that – whatever about her wardrobe – on her watch, the archetype of the devoted political wife, staring worshipfully at her spouse, no matter what scandal simmered in the background, was put to bed.