Best Dress Man
Melania’s Minder kept close watch over his frock.
Unsurprisingly, Melania Knauss’s cumbersome megafrock, the 50-pound, $200,000 Dior that co-starred with her at the Trump nuptials (and swaddled her on the cover of Vogue), came with its own chaperone: dry cleaner to the ruling class John Mahdessian, president of Madame Paulette on East 66th Street. He was on hand at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach with one of his dress experts, who pressed out the 500 pleats—which took eight hours. When the bride finally donned the humble gown, she could hardly move around in it to check herself out. According to one spy at the church, Mahdessian found a mirror at the other side of the sanctuary on the back of a door, unscrewed all of its eight bolts, and carried it over to the princess bride so she could have a last glimpse before walking down the aisle (the sides of which had been cleared of flowers so she wouldn’t knock them over).
—Beth Landman