1 The Jutranka factory that made children’s clothes was central to Melania’s childhood. Her mother worked as a patternmaker there, and Melania and her older sister modeled in factory fashion shows. This photograph from the archives of the National Museum of Contemporary History in Slovenia shows unknown women working at Jutranka in November 1983, when Melania was thirteen.
2 When Melania attended elementary school in the 1970s, all students in Yugoslavia wore identical uniforms for a ceremony that took place around age seven, where they pledged to study hard, respect their parents, and love their socialist country. This photograph shows a Union of Pioneers event in November 1979 at a school in Ljubljana.
3 Melania grew up in Sevnica (pronounced SEH-oo-nee-tsa), a town of around five thousand people, about fifty miles from the Italian border city of Trieste. In a November 2016 campaign speech, the first lady described it as “a small town in Slovenia near a beautiful river and forest.”
4 Photographer Stane Jerko holds a picture he took of sixteen-year-old Melania, then called Melanija Knavs. After Jerko spotted her one evening outside a festival hall, she agreed to a photo session. Jerko was struck by how analytical Melanija was, asking questions about camera angles and lighting.
5 Marina Masowietsky spotted Melania’s photographs in a pile of two hundred applications for a modeling contest she organized. “Yes, she could be a model,” Masowietsky thought. “There is something there.” Melania ended up in second place in the contest, but that was enough to get her a contract with an agency in Milan. In this photo, Melania’s picture is on the wall above and just to the left of Masowietsky’s head.
6 Melania played the role of the first female U.S. president in a short video that aired on Slovenia TV in 1993. “It’s the most extraordinary historical coincidence,” said Jožica Brodaric, who wrote the script for the video directed by Andrej Košak.
7 Melania Trump at a campaign stop in a suburb of Philadelphia on November 3, 2016. She spoke of her early memories of the United States. “America was the word for freedom and opportunity. America meant if you could dream it, you could become it.”
8 Melania Trump spoke for hours to journalists in Paris in 1998, talking about her modeling career and her aspirations to be an actress. “Luck is important because you have to be at the right place at the right time,” she said.
9 Melania was aware of Trump’s complicated family life right from the start. He had been married twice before and had children with each wife. Here at a November 28, 2000, party and benefit auction at Cipriani in New York City, Melania is pictured with Trump as well as his first wife, Ivana, and her boyfriend at the time, Roffredo Gaetani.
10 By the time Melanija Knavs arrived in the United States in 1996, she was known as Melania Knauss. The next year, she appeared in this Camel ad that ran on a billboard near Times Square, where a film director saw it and asked her to audition for a movie.
11 The April 2000 issue of Tatler magazine featured an eight-page spread of Melania posing in many different bikinis, including this one. She was dating Donald Trump, and appeared in several magazines around this time.
12 Donald Trump is flanked by Victoria Silvstedt and Melania at Playboy magazine’s fiftieth anniversary celebration in 2003. Silvstedt, the 1997 Playmate of the Year, and Melania had been roommates in Paris when both modeled there in the 1990s.
13 Melania Knauss during a party for the 2000 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in New York City. She was one of the models featured in the magazine that had Daniela Peštová on the cover.
14 For the December 2000 issue of now-defunct men’s magazine FHM, Melania poses in lingerie. “No one pays too much attention to Donald Trump anymore—they’re too interested in his girlfriend,” the magazine declared.
15 Creative director Scott Woodward works on the set of a shoot for a Concord watch ad campaign that ran in 1999. Melania Knauss is lying in a hotel bed where one of the ads in the “Be Late” campaign was shot.
16 Melania was the model in this 1999 award-winning “Be Late” ad campaign for luxury watches. Its message was that some things were worth being late for; the real luxury was not the watch but time.
17 Trump dropped by the Mercer Hotel in SoHo just as this ad was being shot. “I got out of the shower and put a towel around my waist,” male model Sascha Eiblmayr said. “He said, ‘It looks like I have some stiff competition.’ ”
18 Donald Trump and Melania Knauss, along with her sister, Ines, raise their glasses for a New Year’s toast at Mar-a-Lago in 2004, the year before they were married.
19 Donald, Melania, and Barron Trump with Melania’s parents, Amalija and Viktor Knavs, and Santa Claus, on Christmas Day in 2008. Born in the former Yugoslavia, Melania’s parents became American citizens in 2018.
20 Melania and Donald Trump arrive for a campaign rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, days before the November 2016 election. For most of the race, Melania kept a low profile on the campaign trail, explaining she wanted to stay home with her son.
21 Melania waves to the crowd at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Coverage of her speech was dominated by news reports that some lines were nearly identical to ones spoken by Michelle Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
22 Melania visited the Giza pyramids in Egypt in 2018 during a week-long trip to Africa. After posing for photos widely seen around the world, she said to reporters, “I wish people would focus on what I do, not what I wear,” an eyebrow-raising comment for a former model who wears such distinctive clothing.
23 Melania’s jacket drew international attention in June 2018 because she is a careful dresser and the jacket had a confounding “I Really Don’t Care. Do U?” message on the back as she headed to visit migrant children at a shelter in Texas. Melania explained months later that the message was meant “for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me,” but questions linger about why she wore it.
24 Melania sits in the Oval Office one day in February 2019. The first lady’s office is in the East Wing of the White House, and the Oval Office is in the West Wing, where she sometimes attends official meetings.
25 Melania and her mother, Amalija Knavs, walk the grounds of the White House in June 2018. Her mother has been a huge support and influence, and she frequently stays at the White House, where she speaks Slovenian with her grandson, Barron.
26 Melania and Donald Trump met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in May 2017. Melania is Catholic and described the visit as “one I’ll never forget.”
27 Donald Trump, accompanied by Melania and son Barron, makes a brief stop to talk to reporters before departing for Palm Beach in February 2019. Throughout the presidency, Melania has frequently visited Mar-a-Lago.
