To the question whether the Melania Trump documentary is as bad as the critics are saying, my answer would be: it depends what you’re looking for. My own view is that it’s pretty well what it is billed as: Melania’s take on Melania, with the lady herself in iron control over the direction. So, not a documentary in the normal sense, for better and worse. It’s her account of the 20 days up to and including her husband’s inauguration, with the emphasis exactly where she decides to put it. The benefit of this is that we see what she regards as important, not what other people do. She’s calling the shots, thank you very much.

What kind of life is it, to be forever worrying about an assassin?

It is, for instance, quite inconceivable that a male documentary maker, or most female ones, would have spent as much time as she did on the fittings for her inaugural outfits. Everyone, without exception, has sneered at this focus on the size of her lapels, the length of the sash on her gown, her concern about the hat being quite, quite flat and not, as she put it, “wiggly-wobbly” (the critics had fun with that). Absolutely no-one would have given space to her couturier, Herve Pierre, complimenting himself on a completely invisible seam on that white sheath of an inauguration gown; the seam was, it seems, hidden away under the gift-wrap ribbon of a black sash winding itself around the sheath. (John Galliano, my fashion friend tells me, was brilliant at this.) But she did. And you know why? It was a kind of tribute to her late mother, who was a seamstress herself and showed her the craft of couture in her own work. She recognizes skill in Pierre, because she grew up with it. What’s more she’s a former model, which she says she worked hard to be, and she knows what works and how to wear it. But this notion that making and wearing clothes effectively is itself rather demanding is something most commentators can’t be doing with. Fair enough, but as I say, this is Melania on Melania.

So, the apparent vanity and frivolity of the fittings is........

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