Melania Trump’s New Portrait Breaks With the Past
The New York Times
The official FLOTUS photograph has arrived, and it sends a different message from any that have come before.
After the inaugural hat, the official portrait. Once again, Melania Trump is telegraphing to the world that we should not expect first lady business as usual. But perhaps we should expect business?
The picture, which will top Mrs. Trump’s official web page and make its way to the National Archives, was taken by Régine Mahaux, a Belgian photographer and Trump insider who also took Mrs. Trump’s first official portrait in 2017 and whose photographs of the president and Mrs. Trump have appeared on the covers of Us Weekly, French Vanity Fair, Paris Match and Russian Tatler.
It resembles nothing so much as a promo image for the next season of a show that, if it existed, might be called “The Boardroom.”
The portrait, featuring Mrs. Trump in a slick Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo complete with cummerbund and white shirt, two buttons undone, shows her silhouetted against a large window, the Washington Monument jutting up behind her right shoulder. Her hands are tented atop a broad desk polished to a mirrored shine. She is gazing directly into the camera, mouth set in a straight line with just a hint of amusement at the edges. Her hips are tilted slightly to one side, hair in carefully controlled waves. She looks ready to school the country.
If there was a tagline to accompany the photo, it might read, “It’s my turn now.” The energy is less first lady than boss lady.
Arguably, the first lady is always effectively a boss lady. But that aspect of the job has traditionally remained hidden from public view, with everyone involved conspiring to perpetuate the illusion of the presidential spouse as representative of all things domestic and familial. Apparently not any more.
