Within the newest thriller involving the ever elusive Melania Trump, persons are discovering it straightforward to consider claims that the primary woman’s $100,000 designer wedding ceremony gown is on the market on eBay — at a reduction value, beginning at $45,000.
These claims come from a Lengthy Island lady, who listed an enormous, elaborate, white satin wedding ceremony robe on the e-commerce website on Tuesday. The girl, going by the person identify Svjabc1, claims that the gown she’s promoting is identical strapless robe, designed by John Galliano for Dior couture, that the previous mannequin wore when she wed Donald Trump in January 2005 and for the quilt of Vogue journal the next month, the New York Occasions reported. Photographs of the vendor’s gown present that it, like Melania Trump’s reportedly 60-pound robe, has a voluminous skirt and glittery embroidery, stated to function greater than 1,500 Swarovski crystals.
In response to a Substack report by Vogue trend author Liana Satenstein, the vendor stated she bought Melania Trump’s robe for her personal wedding ceremony in 2011 for $70,000, getting access to it by way of a buddy, who was mates with Donald’s Trump’s spouse. The vendor acknowledged that she made some alterations to the gown, together with by including a brand new layer of satin on the backside and straps to the bodice as a result of her chest is bigger than Melania’s. However because the vendor’s wedding ceremony, the gown has sat in a field, “which I imagine, like the dress, is absolutely enormous,” Satenstein stated.
However is the gown actually Melania Trump’s wedding ceremony robe?
New York Occasions trend author Vanessa Friedman stated the eBay gown doesn’t include any proof of authenticity, aside from the 21 pictures posted on the web page, that are designed to point out its similarity to Melania Trump’s gown. Nonetheless, sources advised each the New York Occasions and Girls’s Put on Every day that the primary woman’s gown needs to be saved away at Mar-a-Lago. The primary woman’s stylist, designer Hervé Pierre, advised the Occasions that he himself saved the robe two years in the past.
Nonetheless, neither the eBay vendor nor the primary woman’s workplace responded to requests for remark from New York Occasions. Dior additionally declined to remark, although a spokesperson for the designer stated that couture robes at all times include a label and a quantity.
This lack of proof of authenticity for the eBay robe has not stopped social media customers and quite a few retailers from seizing on the concept that Donald Trump’s spouse would let her supposedly treasured wedding ceremony gown wind up on eBay. “How Much Would You Pay for Melania Trump’s Wedding Dress?” requested a headline in The Reduce.
If individuals discover it straightforward to consider that Melania Trump off-loaded her wedding ceremony gown, that’s most likely because of Individuals’ “complicated feelings” concerning the Slovenian immigrant and the remainder of the Trump household.
In spite of everything, the Trumps are also identified for making use of a transactional method to non-public, skilled and even diplomatic relationships — with the president’s high officers just lately caught in a leaked Sign group battle chat, grousing about Europe paying its fair proportion to bomb Houthi militia forces in Yemen.
Extra particularly, the Trump household is understood for monetizing their lives, Friedman and others have famous. Whereas the previous actual property mogul grew to become a actuality TV star on “The Apprentice,” Melania Trump had a facet gig, promoting jewellery and skincare on QVC.
In 2022, she started promoting ornaments and limited-edition NFTs — together with one manufactured from a watercolor of her eyes — on her web site, the New York Occasions reported on the time. This yr, Trump’s White Home has taken the unprecedented step of commercializing the annual Easter Egg Roll — an occasion normally presided over by the primary woman — by soliciting company sponsors, as CNN reported.
Some could discover it laborious to fathom that Melania Trump may have so little regard for her wedding ceremony gown that she’d off-load to a buddy of a buddy. Girls typically regard their wedding ceremony attire as amongst their most treasured belongings, one thing they fastidiously retailer away, maybe with the thought of passing it alongside to their very own daughters.
Melania Trump’s wedding ceremony gown additionally might be thought of “historic” — like well-known clothes worn by different first girls or by useless celebrities like Princess Diana or Audrey Hepburn, in response to Friedman. Such clothes objects could be bought by high public sale homes like Christies, typically to lift cash for charity.
First girls even have been identified to donate memorable clothes, worn on historic events, to the Nationwide Archive, Friedman reported.
However Melania Trump has already damaged with that custom to money in, in response to Friedman. In 2022, she auctioned off an “iconic, broad-rimmed” white hat on her web site. She wore the hat throughout a state go to to France throughout her husband’s first administration. The hat was one in every of three items, marketed as a part of Melania Trump’s “Head of State Collection,” that she supplied on the market, with bids beginning at $250,000.
