First Lady Melania Trump Wears Hervé Pierre Dress for Eiffel Tower Dinner
ALLEZ FRANCE: First Lady Melania Trump counted on Hervé Pierre to not only select her dress for Thursday night’s presidential dinner at Le Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower but he also designed it.
As the guests of French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, FLOTUS and the President were a foursome dining at chef Alain Ducasse’s Michelin-starred restaurant. Earlier in the day the first ladies visited Notre-Dame Cathedral before taking a short boat ride on the Seine river. Their husbands, meanwhile, were in the Elysée presidential palace hashing out such weighty issues as Syria, Iraq, climate change and counter-terrorism.
Pierre, who also suited up the First Lady for the inaugural balls in January, said his initial idea was a long dress, but tonight’s less formal dress code called for a below-the-knee style. “She asked me to create a dress for this occasion. That was a big deal for me because I am French and I became an American citizen last summer.”
After exchanging different ideas, the pair decided on a sleeveless dress in navy blue and ivory with a red insert – a nod to the colors of both the American and French flags. “It’s not obvious. It wasn’t as though I thought, “OK, I have to do something navy blue, red and white.’ The idea was more pure, not a pure coincidence, but something that just makes sense,” Pierre said.
Designed with a slimming pencil skirt, the dress is adorned below the neckline with what resembles a bouquet of wheat. “For me, wheat represents summer. Wheat is associated with the goddess Ceres. It’s about summer, prosperity, good luck. It was Mr. Saint Laurent’s favorite flower. I have wheat all over my apartment,” Pierre said.
Another source of inspiration was Arman’s “Homage to the French Revolution,” a white marble sculpture made up of 200 flags with gilded bronze poles in the vestibule of the Élysée Palace. “It is exactly at the entrance. You can actually see it from the outside,” Pierre said. “In the end, it also has to be something that pleases the eye.”
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