Melania Trump Shows Off Her Diamond Diet on Vanity Fair Mexico
The cover of the latest issue of Vanity Fair Mexico is a dig acknowledging the battles currently raging between President Trump and the country of Mexico — as well as President Trump and Vanity Fair magazine, respectively.
In a repurposed stock photo image, the new first lady, Melania Trump, is seen twirling strands of diamond-encrusted necklaces with a fork, as if the jewelry were spaghetti.
Melania Trump, en portada de febrero. Un reportaje que desvela cómo fue el pasado de esta intrigante primera dama. https://t.co/WP298EtGug pic.twitter.com/ZUNOvkYaEI
— Vanity Fair México (@VanityFairMX) January 26, 2017
One of the cover lines declares the FLOTUS to be “la nueva Jackie Kennedy.”
The feature story isn’t new. In fact, it’s repurposed from GQ magazine’s April issue (Condé Nast also owns GQ and content is generally shared internationally). Additionally, the photo was initially taken in December 2011 by Douglas Friedman for Philadelphia Style magazine.
Vanity Fair Mexico can’t take credit for most of the components, yet it’s still a bold, stunning move from the Mexican edition of the Condé Nast-published lifestyle magazine. It also couldn’t be more timely. On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order to begin construction of a wall along the Mexican-American border.
The promise of such a wall was the cornerstone of his campaign message, with his announcement of his race for the presidency beginning with a much-criticized speech in which he said such a wall was necessary since Mexico was “not our friend, believe me. … When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you… They’re sending people that have lots of problems. …They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
Following the announcement of the official order for the building of the border wall earlier this week — and Trump’s initial insistence that Mexico would have to pay for it — POTUS has revised his stance, saying that the wall would instead be funded by a 20 percent tariff imposed on all goods imported to the U.S. from Mexico. Economists, however, have critiqued this plan, saying that such a tariff would only make Mexican goods much more expensive for American consumers, thus effectively making Americans pay for the wall.
The president of Mexico, Enrique Pe?a Nieto, then canceled a meeting that he and Trump were supposed to have on Thursday in response to the tension between the two countries resulting from Trump’s executive order. Trump signed a second executive order on Jan. 25 also targeting Mexico, boosting border patrol officers along the U.S.’s southern border and upping the number of immigration enforcement officers to carry out deportations.
But the president’s current feud with Vanity Fair magazine is just as heated, albeit with less significant geopolitical implications. The magazine’s longtime U.S. edition editor, Graydon Carter, has been feuding with POTUS since the 1980s, when Carter referred to Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in Spy magazine.
More recently, Carter wrote a scathing takedown of Trump in October 2016, detailing the now-president’s crass, offensive, and misogynistic behavior sitting at the Vanity Fair table at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner back in 1987.
Carter’s piece went on to detail the businessman’s seemingly obsessive hatred of Carter and the magazine he helms. (The magazine has certainly not shied away from critical coverage of Trump’s behavior — including his conflicts of interests — since Trump assumed the presidency, either.)
The Trump-Vanity Fair feud appeared to hit its tipping point, however, when the magazine published an unflattering review of Trump Grill, the restaurant housed inside of the president’s longtime residence, his eponymous Trump Tower. The headline of the review read, “Trump Grill Could Be the Worst Restaurant in America.” Predictably, this led Trump to take to Twitter to rant against Vanity Fair and Carter, the latest volley in a decades-long feud.
Has anyone looked at the really poor numbers of @VanityFair Magazine. Way down, big trouble, dead! Graydon Carter, no talent, will be out!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2016
In response, the magazine added the tweet to its February 2017 cover, and, according to Condé Nast, has even seen an uptick in subscriptions. Carter, along with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, met with the president at the Condé Nast offices at One World Trade Center in early January.
So in conclusion, using a photo of Melania twirling diamond-pasta as a Marie Antoinette “Let them eat cake” stand-in on the cover of Vanity Fair Mexico is nothing short of the ultimate shade.
Follow Yahoo Style on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.