Melania Trump’s Modeling Days Revealed by Photographers

As the only first lady to have once been an international fashion model, Melania Trump’s years of working professionally in front of the camera have become an all-consuming subject for millions as of late.

Earlier this week Trump sparked a slew of news stories and social media posts by defending the nude fashion photos she took as a working model in 1996 via a video post Tuesday on “X.” There are inevitably more details to be revealed, with Trump’s memoir “Melania” soon to be released by Skyhorse Publishing.

The former first lady, earlier known by her maiden name, Melania Knauss, has never shied away from referencing her fashion experience. In 2016, her White House biography name-checked some of the leading photographers with whom she has worked, including Patrick Demarchelier, Helmut Newton, Arthur Elgort, Ellen von Unwerth, Peter Arnell, Antoine Verglas and Mario Testino. It also noted her magazine covers for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, British GQ, Ocean Drive, Avenue, InStyle and New York Magazine. Trump’s Vogue cover was tied to her 2005 wedding. But the fact that she was not given a Vogue cover as first lady has been a point of consternation, especially since Jill Biden and other recent first ladies have.

When Trump was fresh to New York City in the late 1990s, she worked with Arnell on one of her first major ad campaigns in 1999: one for Concord Watch. Arnell recalled Friday, “It was the ‘Be Late’ campaign. The whole concept was, if you could afford a watch of that magnitude, then you didn’t really care about time.”

He continued, “She was sleeping in bed. The idea was ‘I’m sleeping. I can afford to sleep late.’”

Arnell described Trump as “great, sweet, normal and very professional.” He added, “She entered the market at a very high level, because Concord was considered an extremely luxurious product at that time. She represented serious luxury. She showed up extraordinarily in the photography. She was great.”

Verglas worked with Trump about 12 times starting in 1996 on jewelry campaigns, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and a few editorial assignments. After being hired at the end of 1999 by British GQ for a James Bond-inspired cover story, the lensman said that he suggested her for the job. Donald Trump‘s offer to lend his Boeing 727 for a few hours made the story “more interesting” for Verglas. Inspired by the James Bond film “Goldfinger,” Verglas had Trump hold a golden plastic toy gun as a prop, which he said he also used for a shoot with Beyoncé a few years later for Maxim magazine. Trump’s then-girlfriend was photographed wearing only jewelry, handcuffed to a leather briefcase, and curled up on what looked like a fur rug.

“Everybody is talking about ‘Nudity, Nudity.’ There’s no nudity. There’s what we call ‘implied nudity.’ There’s no frontal nudity. There’s absolutely nothing,” Verglas said. “It’s shocking that in comparison to what we see today in the world, people are still shocked by this image. Melania is a gorgeous and stunning model.”

Trump isn’t the only former first lady to pose in the buff professionally. Verglas cited Carla Bruni, whose husband Nicolas Sarkozy served as France’s president. “She was also a top model and she did many shoots. Like many top models, she has done certain shoots that I call ‘sensual, more feminine, a little more sexy,’ where there is nudity. But it was always done with a certain elegance and class. That distinguishes the beauty of the feminine, human body,” Verglas said.

A nude shot of Bruni sold for $96,000 in 1993 at auction.

There’s nothing very scandalous about such images from top models, the photographer said. “You have seen many extremely famous actresses, who have done shoots that were sexier. It’s part of the job at some point.”

Verglas said he was tipped off about Trump by Paolo Zampolli, who discovered her and was running ID Models at that time. Verglas recalled, “I loved her beauty, stature and elegance. She was pretty reserved. She was not an extroverted person. We were never close, but we worked together a dozen times. She was always very professional and nice to the staff and the people on the team around us.”

Verglas also mentioned how during the 2016 presidential campaign, then-Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz illegally used one of his images of Melania Trump from the British GQ shoot for posters. The photographer opted not to take legal action against Cruz. “I didn’t want the headaches [of doing that.] It didn’t last long,” he said.

Verglas said he “finds it funny and is happy” that the British GQ images, which were done at the end of 1999, are still relevant today.

Having photographed Trump naked for the now-defunct fashion magazine Max circa 1996, Alexandre de Basseville said Friday, “She was not like a typical model that I was seeing every day at that time. My wife, Ines Rivera, at that time was like a supermodel for Victoria’s Secret,” he said. “It was the time of Amber Valletta and Shalom Harlow. All these girls were living together on Christopher Street, near Sheridan Square and in TriBeCa.”

In addition to not being ultrathin like those top models, the Slovenian-born Trump also looked different from the Eastern European models on the fashion scene. In the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many models from the Eastern Bloc were “very skinny and had teeth that were not of good quality, because there was such poverty,” de Basseville said. “For me, it was really impactful to see a girl, who was so well-done, if I can say that. Her teeth were perfect…”

She was not like a typical or regular woman, who you could meet — in the way she talks, the way she acts, the way she lives. She has been preparing for something. There was something in her that was different,” de Basseville said.

The photographer said Zampolli, who cofounded Metropolitan Modeling, had told him that she was Donald Trump’s girlfriend at that time, and that Melania had, too. De Basseville said Friday that he found that information inconsequential. “You can fall in love. You have the right to fall in love,” he said.

Zampolli, the U.N. ambassador to Dominica, did not acknowledge a media request Friday.

In the mid- to late-1990s, many foreign-born models managed to get visas through their agencies and lawyers, according to de Basseville. “It was not a big deal,” he said.

Trump qualified for permanent residence in the U.S. based on her extraordinary ability in her field, according to Michael Wildes, a managing partner at Wildes & Weinberg. He declined to specify when. In 2016, Trump posted on social media that she had modeled Stateside with a visa. She reportedly first came to the U.S. in August 1996 on a B1/B2 visitor visa and then obtained a H-1B work visa in October 1996. Trump reportedly received a green card in March 2001 and became a U.S. citizen in 2006.

Wildes said he secured citizenship for Trump’s parents Amalija and Viktor Knavs [in 2018], as well as a green card for her sister Ines Knauss.

Before working and living in New York, Trump was based in Paris in the mid-1990s. Her former roommate Victoria Silvstedt once described her to WWD as “very determined, very ambitious, so strong-minded, very Slovenian and such a good person.”

Trump was modeling for Marilyn Gauthier and Silvstedt was at Metropolitan at that time. “We were just starting out together. At the beginning of your career, you would run to 12 castings a day with your model book, competing with hundreds of girls at each casting. We basically would spend the day on the Métro, on the subway underground. This was the time before cell phones. We were in a different country without speaking the language,” Silvstedt said in 2016. “It’s not easy to move in with a stranger coming from two different countries. We really, really got along very well. She would never go out and want to party. She was very determined, very serious in her work.”

Trump’s modeling experience still pays off in different ways. Her stylist Hervé Pierre said Friday that she is “very technical,” swift and precise about any needed alterations, during fittings. That is not the case with other clients. “With a client who doesn’t know fashion, they will say, ‘I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable,’” he said. “But as a [former] model, she will say, “I think you need to give me a little bit more of a cross-shoulder. I think you need to give me an eighth [of an inch] here, and it should be fine.”

Such minutes-long conversations are routine for their fittings. “This makes our lives that much easier. Suddenly, I don’t need to guess, because I’m not the one wearing the dress,” Pierre said. “It’s very efficient, because we don’t spend hours saying, ‘Well, I don’t know.’”