![]() Ever since fashion modeling was professionalized in the early 20th century, children of the wealthy, powerful, and famous have been featured in advertising campaigns, on magazine covers, and on catwalks the world over. This dance - the dismissals and appeals that bubble up when privilege and nepotism collide with the faulty meritocracy of beauty - has played out innumerable times in the modeling business. “I’m sure later people are going to look at her as Ivanka Trump because she’s a great model and not because she’s Donald and Ivana’s daughter,” Audrey Roatta, an Elite employee, told VH1. ![]() Presenting a united front with its client, Elite’s team maintained that, family aside (her mother, Ivana, had once been a professional model), the teenage Trump had the drive and looks to succeed in fashion. (Elite denied the claim.) Michael Flutie of Company Management, another agency, told the Times that he didn’t think Trump had an extraordinary knack for modeling and said that, personally, he would not have offered her a contract. That year, a fashion show producer informed the New York Daily News that Trump’s agents had demanded $10,000 for a single runway appearance, the kind of money awarded to reigning supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista. Of course she was defensive about her qualifications as a model. Photo: Mitchell Gerber/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images Ivanka Trump backstage at Marc Bouwer’s fall fashion show. When she wasn’t in school, Trump walked runways wearing a furry black bustier (at Thierry Mugler), an iridescent gold cocktail dress (Paco Rabanne), and a wintry outfit the color of a maraschino cherry (Marc Bouwer). She was signed to Elite Model Management - her father, Donald Trump, a real estate mogul but not yet a reality television star nor a politician, had known Elite’s president for years - and in the late ’90s she booked advertising campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, Mugler Trademark, and Sasson Jeans. Nearly 6 feet tall with wide brown eyes and a round baby face, Trump was pursuing an extracurricular career as a fashion model. “And if the public doesn’t like you, then you’re never gonna succeed.” “It’s more about the public opinion,” she continued, confidently. Trump spoke in a polished, direct tone, already versed in the art of delivering a sound bite. That’s what 15-year-old Ivanka Trump told VH1 during a segment that went behind the scenes of her cover shoot for Seventeen’s May 1997 issue. “People are always going to speculate and people are always going to wonder, ‘Could she have done it without her parents being who they are?’ And I’ve always thought, in this industry, your parents can’t really get you that far.” You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here. ![]() The archives will remain available here for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. ![]()
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