“I guess she didn’t realize that social media would find out! And the worst thing is that she did it on a sneak.” -Francesca Sorrenti
Louis Pisano, a Paris-based writer and social media force with 153K+ Instagram followers, broke the story. Ellen von Unwerth, the fashion world favorite who has worked for Vogue, Vanity Fair and got famous for her Guess Jeans campaigns, photographed Melania Trump for the posters promoting the documentary Melania which is being released in theaters today.
“Who would be thirsty enough to position themself with this fascist administration?” Pisano asked on Instagram. “From a photographer who loves the spotlight and proximity to powerful people…one can almost think that she doesn’t want people to know that she is in bed with the Trump administration.”
Pisano’s reel was re-posted by Madonna and hundreds sounded off in the comments. Photographer Francesca Sorrenti wrote “I guess she didn’t realize that social media would find out! And the worst thing is that she did it on a sneak. And at a time of war.” Fashion illustrator Richard Haines commented “What in the Leni Riefenstahl?” Kish Kash called von Unwerth “Ellen von Unethical” while Sting’s daughter, the actress Mickey Sumner, kept it simple with “FU Ellen von Unwerth.” Ruba Abu-Nimah, a creative director, wrote: “Ellen von Unwerth is neither iconic nor relevant. The industry hasn’t paid attention to her in, at least, a couple of decades.”
But now social media is paying a lot of attention to von Unwerth, the 72-year-old German photographer who first photographed Melania Trump for a Camel cigarette ad in the 1990s. Mrs. Trump’s agent Marc Beckman told Fox News (of course) that “Ellen and Melania have an incredible relationship,” adding “this is something the fashion community will not expect.” Um, that’s for sure.
“I got quite a few DMs laying out a pattern that she seems to have had of cozying up to people in the Trump world orbit.” -Louis Pisano
Pisano posted after von Unwerth was spotted at a special black-tie screening of Melania at the White House attended by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Erika Kirk, Mike Tyson, Queen Rania of Jordan and designer Adam Lippes. “Given what had just happened hours before with the murder of Alex Pretti, people need to be informed about people that we are in community with – meaning the fashion industry and how they’re supporting this administration,” Pisano tells me. “I knew that most people in fashion would never find this information out.” The post has over 1200 comments so far. “It was interesting watching people react to it,” he says. “One of her agents announced he was dropping her as a client in the comments. I got quite a few DMs laying out a pattern that she seems to have had of cozying up to people in the Trump world orbit.”
Directed by Brett Ratner (who hasn’t made a movie since he was accused of sexual misconduct in a 2017 Los Angeles Times investigation), Melania cost a whopping $75 million to make and market (the Oscar-nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg 2018 documentary RBG had a budget of a million dollars, for comparison). Distributed by Amazon, some are calling the film ‘pay for play’ so Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who is rumored to want to buy Vogue magazine) can curry favor with the often-transactional Trump administration.
Star photographers Bruce Weber and Mario Testino were seemingly cancelled at the height of the #MeToo movement after a 2018 piece in The New York Times in which male models accused both of sexual exploitation. Yet Weber and Testino have weathered the scandal and continue to photograph supermodels and celebrities. Pisano thinks von Unwerth will survive the Melania controversy. “I don’t think it will affect her much because the people I think she cares about are not people that would let politics get in the way of making money,” he says. “I don’t think it’s a priority for her to stand for anything other than herself. At the end of the day, she’s still Ellen von Unwerth and fashion people have notoriously short memories.” – PETER DAVIS
(Messages to von Unwerth and her agents at 2B Management went unanswered)
