Melania Trump is her own winter wonderland in Céline at Congressional Ball

President Trump speaks while first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, look on at the White House Congressional Ball on Dec. 15, 2018. (Photo: Yuri Gripas-Pool/Getty Images)
President Trump speaks while first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, look on at the White House Congressional Ball on Dec. 15, 2018. (Photo: Yuri Gripas-Pool/Getty Images)

At the White House Congressional Ball on Saturday Night, Melania Trump wore a wintry white Céline gown and accepted her husband’s praise for her much-maligned Christmas decorations. In a tumultuous week for both the president and the first lady, the former model mostly let her shimmering appearance speak for her.

Trump’s last notable Céline outfit was the breezy red-and-white shirt dress she wore when arriving in Ghana in October. In Saturday’s sequined long-sleeve, floor-length dress, Trump resembled a beautiful ice sculpture as her husband spoke of his accomplishments and what he hoped to pass in the next two years. The president made no mention of the legal shadows hanging over his administration.

“Welcome to the White House. Enjoy the evening. Merry Christmas and happy and healthy New Year,” Melania Trump said. The first lady’s hair looked considerably less blond than it had during her interview on Fox News Thursday. That may have been a result of different lighting, or she may have darkened it since then.

Also on Saturday evening, the first lady’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, published an op-ed on CNN.com defending her. The network had previously posted an opinion piece stating that she “doesn’t understand what it means to be first lady,” after she told Fox News that the hardest part of her job is the way “opportunists” use her name. This was during a week in which lawyer Michael Cohen’s hush money payments to Donald Trump’s two alleged mistresses were back in the headlines.

“The media consistently ignores the first lady’s work on behalf of the people of this country, and children in particular, in favor of more trivial matters,” Grisham wrote. According to the Daily Mail, the Trumps stayed at the Congressional Ball for only 29 minutes before heading back to the residence.

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