A young woman, Melania from a former communist country so tiny and new that even the majority of Europeans have never heard of it comes to New York with aspirations of becoming a supermodel. This young Slovenian is looking down from a Times Square billboard a few years later. In a wedding attended by politicians and celebrities, she marries a charismatic tycoon. After that, she was appointed the United States’ First Lady. This isn’t a movie, though, because Melanija Knavs, the young woman, turned into Melania Trump.
Melania, who is now 50, would never have been seen or discovered too late. She might have signed with the incorrect organizations or had never heard of Donald Trump before. “Every step in my life had a different turning point,” Melania tells in a rare email interview. I served our wonderful country as First Lady after growing up in Slovenia, living in Milan and Paris as a young woman, and then relocating to the United States and settling in New York City in my twenties.
Can we talk about Melania’s wedding dress? Melania wore a stunning custom $100,000 Christian Dior gown for her wedding! The strapless dress was made with nearly 300 feet of Duchesse satin and featured over 1,500 hand-stitched crystal rhinestones & pearls 😍#FashionoftheFirstLady pic.twitter.com/4gw72FRFVP
— FLOTUS Report (@MELANIAJTRUMP) January 22, 2020
It all started in Ljubljana, in what was then Yugoslavia, in January 1987. Knavs, Melanija, was sixteen. Stane Jerko, a photographer, was departing early from a fashion show at the Festival Hall in the city. “I saw this girl by the stairway at the entrance,” he continues. Melania had her back against a fence. She appeared to be waiting for someone. According to Jerko, she was tall, slender, and had long hair. “I explained to her who I was, what I did, and why I was taking her picture.” This was how you met new people before Instagram.
‘Still, I didn’t have the impression she was ambitious,’ says Jerko. ‘She was timid.’ The pictures he developed looked great. ‘So I called her back to do a shoot for the Slovenian magazine Model.’ Her career had launched, though Jerko noticed there was still something closed off about her.
Melania Trump went from being an unknown immigrant to being the most powerful person in politics in under three decades. The media and Twitter have closely followed her every action. She tells that she is a living example that “the American dream really exists.”
A plethora of memes about Trump’s wife surfaced after his surprising win, many of which capitalized on the notion that Melania was unhappy, stuck in a loveless marriage, and compelled to play a part she didn’t want to play. Her school friends think these interpretations are mistaken: ‘I think she’s happy,’ says Petra Sedej, who dismissed talk of Melania as a bimbo. ‘She’s smart enough.’
After signing with an agency upon her arrival in Milan in 1992, Melania started going by a different name, eschewing the Slavic Melanija Knavs in favor of the more Germanic Melania Knaus. Melania went from communist to super-capitalism in just five years. The 1990s saw the rise of supermodels like Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, and Cindy Crawford in New York.
2. At 16, a photographer’s lens launched her modeling career.
As Melania Knauss, she graced runways in Paris and Milan. But her early work included risqué shoots, some topless, later scrutinized when she entered the political spotlight.
Ambition has its costs. pic.twitter.com/nrJRhQcQDK
— Muse (@xmuse_) April 26, 2025
It was the height of showy, ostentatious, and flamboyant celebrities. There was too much in. The carefree and sexually charged American boom before terrorism, polarization, and ecological degradation started to undermine the nation’s confidence was the time period that gave rise to Melania.
Melania met Trump at the Kit Kat Club during New York Fashion Week. ‘He wanted my number,’ she reminisced. ‘But he was on a date, so of course I didn’t give it to him. I said, “I am not giving you my number; give me yours and I will call you.” If I give him my number, I’m just one of the women he calls.’
Melania Timepieces and Jewelry, her own jewelry brand, was introduced in 2010. In the last ten years, she is estimated to have made about £36.9 million from this endeavor alone. She also has an apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower and has published a popular memoir.
