Melania’s World

Is Melania Trump Getting Blonder or Is That Just the Light?

The First Lady showed off a new ’do at a Toys for Tots event.
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By NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images.

Melania Trump took a moment on Tuesday to spend a little time with some tots. The Toys for Tots event is a heartwarming annual moment for any First Lady. All across the U.S., the Marine Corps Reserve collects unwrapped, new toys and those go to children whose parents cannot afford to buy them gifts for Christmas, and the partner to the president gets to bring attention to those efforts. It fits in well with the current First Lady’s expansive “Be Best” campaign, a catchall for helping children, which she noted during her remarks early in the event, saying it’s her “mission” to “shine a light” on child-focused programs. She also donated a 100 books to the Toys for Tots Literacy program.

And everything looked very familiar there at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington. As in Michelle’s time, so too in Melania’s: There were the titular tots crafting and their parents, many of whom were men and women in uniform. The speech played for kids and marines alike; it was one full of holiday platitudes and good cheer. Santa got screened by the Secret Service. There were war machines decorated with stuffed animals. What? Yes, war machines adorned with teddy bears and stuffed monkeys. This year, a deranged-looking unicorn led the charge into battle on the hood of a camo combat vehicle (refer to the end of the video below for a visual). To be fair, the East Wing probably isn’t responsible for the decor, and in 2016, before Melania’s time, alongside equally animal-embellished vehicles were cardboard cutouts of marines standing stiff.

It all seemed to go off without a hitch this year. Melania chatted with children, which is something she’s very good at, and wore a festive plaid top, another thing she’s good at. There’s just one thing that I suppose stood out out. Well, I could be wrong, it’s so hard to tell sometimes with this kind of thing. Is Melania Trump blonder? Like not Fox News blonde, just more aggressively balayaged than before. Is it just the overhead light on the base? Or is she several shades lighter? It’s so hard to tell. Please let me know.

“Who cares about hair? She hanging with tots. Isn’t that enough for you people?” you say. Yes, I hear you. It’s just that we haven’t had a blonde First Lady since practically the 90s, if you discount that day in 2014 when Michelle turned up her highlights. And now, as many have pointed out, being blonde by choice in 2018 is loaded, as whiteness (or at least anti-brownness) seems to grow ever more important to the current administration. There on Fox, pert blondes warn of caravans and foreign interlopers here to steal and hurt, and cherubic Ivanka defends her dad’s border tactics on ABC. Blonde is safe, blonde is youth, blonde is us, blonde is not them, and now Melania, too, is inching closer to it. I think. It really could just be the light on her normal head of hair. What is real and what is just a trick of the light, you know?

That’s probably not what‘s going on here, right? She’s not replicating the talking head blonde, probably. Her stylist maybe just decided something fresh for fall was in order, or Mrs. Trump was opting for a fun changeup in time for the holidays. And anyway, the reason for the season isn’t hair. The point is the tots, who are trying their best to be best right now.

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