Have you ever wondered what happened to Melania Trump’s Christian Dior couture wedding dress? You know, the massive, Swarovski-diamond-encrusted gown she wore on the cover of Vogue and down the aisle to marry President Donald Trump in 2005? No? Fair enough. Well, if a recent eBay listing is to be believed, that little piece of history isn’t packed away somewhere in the halls of Mar-a-Lago but available for sale for a cool $45,000 online. With free shipping!
The listing was surfaced by writer Liana Satenstein, who wrote in her Substack, Neverworns, that a bride-to-be friend came across it while searching for “’80s Dior dress” on eBay. Apparently, the seller purchased the dress from our current First Lady back in 2010 through a mutual friend for $70,000 and recently decided to flip it. The listing has been up since at least the end of January.
Melania’s wedding dress harks back to a time when she and Donald were New York society stars entrenched with the fashion Establishment: front row at fashion shows, regular guests at the Met Gala. To mark the occasion of their January 2005 wedding, Melania wore the giant satin confection in her first and only appearance on the cover of Vogue that February, photographed by Mario Testino. The story, written by former Vogue editor Sally Singer and titled “How to Marry a Billionaire,” follows a 34-year-old Melania Knauss as she searches for a wedding dress during Paris Couture Week under the guidance of André Leon Talley. In the end, she chose a “dress fit for a princess,” as Dior’s head of couture Catherine Rivière described it in the magazine, complete with 90 meters of white satin and 550 hours’ worth of hand-embroidered crystal beading. When Melania asked, “How do I walk around in this?” Rivière reportedly responded, “You just do.” By the time the magazine went to press, Melania had worn the Dior gown to officially become a Trump at the ceremony in Palm Beach, where Bill and Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Shaquille O’Neal, and Simon Cowell were among the guests in attendance.
Five years later, the eBay seller says she bought the gown to wear for her own wedding. (Based on the furniture in the background of her listing’s photos and her Louis Vuitton logo manicure, that tracks.) She claims to have only made a few changes, including expanding the torso with a layer of fabric on the back. But other than needing to be cleaned and ironed, she promises the dress is in good condition and ready for your upcoming boom boom wedding. As of this writing, the dress was in one person’s cart. Best of luck to them, I guess?