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First Lady Melan­ia Trump is pictured during a visit to the National Gallery of Art with Brigitte Macron in Washington on April 24, 2018.ERIN SCHAFF/The New York Times News Service

During the French President’s visit, when Melania Trump appeared in a spectacular white stovepipe hat, it was like everything stopped. All in attendance, including Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump, were upstaged. The chapeau stole the show.

With the bonnet and heels, the former Slovenian model towered, like the Eiffel as someone put it, over everyone.

For the summit, which featured Mr. Trump’s first state dinner, she organized every opulent and elegant aspect – from the gold-trimmed table settings to the buttermilk biscuit crumbles to the 1,200 cherry blossoms.

Until this Jackie Kennedy moment, Melania Trump had been more like a First Lady in hiding, a stone-faced mannequin in gunmetal stilettos who came across as more alien than American. Finally, however, she chose to bring a spotlight to herself and sophistication to the proceedings.

For a White House that’s been steeped in dysfunction, dross and low-grade antics, the show of refinement was needed. Now that Melania has finally assumed a real First Lady role, more will come. She may brighten this administration’s image.

It wasn’t just the Macron visit and the Kentucky Derby hat that changed things. There was something else. Stormy Daniels also happened. We all remember what Bill Clinton’s philandering did for the image of Hillary Clinton. It turned her into a figure of sympathy and, because she handled it stoically, a figure of strength. Mr. Trump’s alleged dalliances with the porn actress are likewise serving to humanize Melania. She, too, has handled the humiliation stoically.

A Twitter post during the Macron visit, one of thousands to feature the Melania chapeau, picked up on the theme. It said the broad-rimmed topper could serve as a “moat” for “defence against a Trump kissing attack.”

The multilingual Melania, who turns 48 today, is the most elegant First Lady since Ms. Kennedy. She has the beauty, the style, a background in fashion and modeling, a strong mind, an air of independence.

A new book, The Trump White House, Changing the Rules of the Game, by Ronald Kessler, says the media often portray Melania as “brainless, money grubbing, spineless, or sickened by her husband.” Not true, says the laudatory book which reads like a response to Fire and Fury, the scathing Trump indictment by Michael Wolff. She’s no wallflower but rather a strong player whose stands her ground. She has “tremendous influence on the President and his staff, sits in on key meetings, summarizes the points others make.”

The book claims she is constantly trying to get the President to cease from resorting to Twitter attacks. Obviously she has gotten nowhere on that front and if she is advising him on media, as the book says, she is doing little to quell his grudge-bearing rancour.

In her relationship with Mr. Trump she has claimed not to take a back seat. “You know, he’s kind of a general,” she once told Larry King. “He needs to have people in line. But not at home. We are very equal in the relationship and that is important. You know to marry a man like Donald is – you need to be very strong and very smart and he needs to know that he can rely on you sometimes.”

Relying on her for the state visit festivities was a good thing for him, if not as much for her French counterpart, Brigitte Macron. The French are highly fashion-conscious and it could not have been comfortable for Ms. Macron, in her Louis Vuitton gold-brocaded dress, to see the mountains of coverage Ms. Trump received for her top hat and dinner ensemble – a Chanel black Chantilly lace haute couture gown.

For the visit, the White House made a point of getting the news out that Melania was the social architect. A short video was released showing her working on details with her staff. Now that she is coming out, the guessing game is on as to how prominent a role she will play.

There have been First Ladies who are wallflowers and those who are players, First Ladies who are tough-minded and those who are duds.

In style, look and sophistication, Ms. Trump most ressembles Ms. Kennedy. There will never be another Jackie. No one can possibly get that much excessively fawning press coverage.

But the potential of Melania Trump is not to be overlooked. For starters, she brings class to a White House that is crass.

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