A viral meme from earlier this year showing the before and after of the shooting of several women on the path of Donald Trump – RNC chairwoman Lara Trump, Don Jr. squeeze Kimberly Guilfoyle, conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and South Dakota governor and confessed dog killer Kristi Noem – pointed to an undeniable trend. Their faces were everything, in an unknown era, from human to makeup-caked, angular cheekboned, full-lipped, Fellini-esque exaggerations of the dolled-up Fox News anchorwoman look. And it’s not just women: Few of us can remember what the former Florida Rep. (and former attorney general) Matt Gaetz’s RNC speech last summer, so we were treated to a new elfin arc of his eyebrows. (And the less said about George Santos and his Botox habit, the better.)
As with everything Trump does, the look represents a departure from established DC culture. Will Trump’s return to the White House cause the entire country of Mar-a-Lago to face off in defiance of the 2024 vogue for moderation and prudence? After all, the White House has a proud history of style, from the “Jackie style” to Michelle Obama’s competition for designer Jason Wu, to Trump’s knees.
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Matt Gaetz at the RNC in July.
The streets of Washington may be more conservative than in LA and New York, but the city’s politics and media are only looking for cosmetic help. “Everybody gets some blemishes,” said dermatologist Tina Alster, who counts Nancy Pelosi and Wolf Blitzer among her patients and is among DC’s most famous doctors. “Kamala has been taking care of it for a long time, Biden’s Botox is sometimes too much, Mr. Trump has a red color that needs attention,” analyzes Alster. (THR has not confirmed any of these civil servants’ cosmetic regimens.)
If Trump’s recovery really does involve plastic surgery, don’t expect Capitol Hill to admit it. Alster treats patient visits as CIA exits. He has a back door and a secret stairwell to cover politicos and media bigwigs with tact. “I try to book those of the Secret Service before the other people arrive, or late, after they leave, and I take great pains to make sure to separate the inauguration of the Democrats and the Republicans by about an hour.” prohibited: “Some of the Republicans insist that I do not take their pictures and they insist on putting their charts under the names of.”
This story appeared in the November 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to register.
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