AFP, New York :
Groomed to perfection yet rarely heard in public, Melania Trump is an enigma-a first lady whose opinions, marriage and goals remain a mystery to millions of Americans.
She is without question a unique first lady: a former model who once posed nude in her husband’s private jet; the first foreign-born wife of a US president in nearly 200 years; and the first for whom English is a second language.
A year after channelling Jacqueline Kennedy in powder blue Ralph Lauren at her husband’s inauguration, Trump has yet to embrace a cause, as did Michelle Obama with her anti-obesity campaign or Laura Bush and her literacy program.
For months, she stayed in New York, refusing to move to the White House until her young son Barron-of whom she is said to be fiercely protective-finished the school year.
She is infrequently seen in Washington and costing law enforcement tens of thousands of dollars a day in protection.
“She is still an enigma after a year,” says Katherine Jellison, a professor of history at Ohio University who has researched US first ladies. “I don’t think the American people feel that they know the real woman yet.”
Her campaign-era pledge to fight against cyber-bullying has never come to light and saw her mercilessly criticized given her husband Donald’s own reputation as something of a Twitter bully.
As the 47-year-old wife of a 71-year-old man known for past lewd remarks about women, and who divorced his two previous wives in a blaze of tabloid publicity, she is dogged by speculation that they lead largely separate lives.
