Melania Trump Looks So Different In Throwback Photo With Curly Hair

Since becoming the first lady in 2017, Melania Trump has adopted a signature look. Fitting with FLOTUS standards and perhaps even influencing the "Republican hair" trend (though not one of its worst offenders), Melania seems to have settled on a very sophisticated hairdo: long, honey waves held in place with hairspray and complemented with curtain bangs. But before she found her first-lady style, the Slovenian-born former model went through numerous hair changes. A deep dive into her hair history shows that she once opted for looks that were vastly different from the mane she has today, and Y2K snaps of her with curls need to be seen to be believed.

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"We've evolved [Melania's hair] over time and through magazine covers, parties, events, and TV interviews I've styled her for," her hairstylist, Mordechai Alvow, told Yahoo! Beauty in 2017. "She has high cheekbones, a long neck, and a gorgeous Eastern European look, and she looks especially great with a modern take on late 1960s styles." Alvow told the outlet that he and Melania have been "inspired by Sophia Loren [and] Brigitte Bardot," but Melania's curly hair at the turn of the millennium had a distinctly noughties feel. And while it's nothing like her FLOTUS hair, we're sure she looks back on it fondly. For one thing, she looks stunning with her Y2K curls, but Melania's beauty ethos also means that she always dresses and styles herself based on her own feelings, so she shouldn't carry many regrets. As she told Elle in 2016, "I style myself and choose what to wear based on what I feel good in."

One of the photos that we have of Melania Trump from her curly-hair era was taken in New York City in 2000, when she was still Melania Knauss and Donald Trump was just her boyfriend. At this point, they had been dating for around two years after meeting at a fashion week party in 1998. To the opening of Aida in New York City that March, Melania teamed her icy-blue glitzy, sleeveless dress with tumbling curls in her brunette hair, and the power of hindsight makes her look like a completely different person. 

The major difference in Melania's look might not be the curls so much as the volume; even when the FLOTUS goes for wavy styles today, she nearly always has a sleek finish rather than any sort of height or teasing. Her middle-parted curtain bangs are also shorter than those she has today. This was the point in Melania Trump's stunning hair transformation where she was riding the wave of Y2K hairstyling, complete with hairspray, teasing combs, and curling wands. The shade of her hair isn't that far off from the honey tones she experimented with for most of her husband's first term nearly two decades later, while his second term seems to have brought out the blond in the first lady. But even with the similar color, the volume and lift in those curls makes all the difference.

As mentioned, 2025 has seen Melania Trump drifting closer to blond territory rather than her signature brown, but it's not the former model's first time doing so. In another throwback photo taken at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, in which Melania and Donald Trump posed with his sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau, and his mother, Mary Anne Trump, we can see that Melania experimented with curls and bleach at the same time. Not only did she lighten her hair, bringing it to a similar shade to her then-boyfriend's, but she also appeared to have lightened her brows, resulting in a completely different look for the FLOTUS. Since she seems to only be wearing a smear of lip gloss, this is one of the few times we've gotten to see what Melania Trump looks like nearly makeup-free.

The curtain bangs are still present but seem to have grown out a little since the Aida opening that year, while these curls have a totally different feel from her voluminous version. More mermaid wave and less uniform, these curls appear to have drooped in the Florida humidity. This look is certainly more relaxed than many of Melania's other looks, curly hair or not, but that could be just what she's going for. "We want to make sure she doesn't look like she just stepped out of the salon — there's something very beautiful in imperfection," Mordechai Alvow confirmed in his 2017 interview with Yahoo! Beauty. "She has a hair salon in her home, but we actually don't really use it, because she prefers to get ready in her bedroom or living room."

Now, for another stroll down memory lane, here are Melania Trump's most daring looks from before she became first lady.