The New York company Trump Model Management is shutting down, a piece of news that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Sure, the agency still bears the vestigial name of its model-connoisseur founder. And yes, the president’s financial disclosure forms last year reported that he owned an 85 percent stake in the company and earned $2 million from it in 2015. But the truthier truth is surely what he has told the American people: He has handed over control of his businesses to his two oldest sons, he has absolutely nothing to do with those businesses anymore, and the details are none of our business. The matter is settled! So this is just a news item about a random failing modeling agency, which happens to have been recently accused of flouting immigration law by using foreign models who have overstayed their tourist visas.
As Mother Jones reports, the company’s president, Corinne Nicolas, emailed colleagues over the weekend to inform them of the company’s preparations to close. “The Trump Organization is choosing to exit the modeling industry,” she wrote. “On the heels of the recent sale of the Miss Universe Organization, the company is choosing to focus on their core businesses in the real estate, golf and hospitality space.”
Trump founded the agency in 1999, and it once represented top names including Pat Cleveland and Carmen Dell’Orefice. But Trump’s political career has hurt the agency. Several top models and agents have fled since November. The ’90s supermodel Maggie Rizer quit just days before the election, saying she adored Nicolas but “as a woman, a mother, an American and a human being, I cannot wake up Wednesday morning being the least bit related to the Trump brand.” That gives her something in common with the president, who insisted that he, too, woke up on Wednesday, Nov. 9, as a man unrelated to the Trump brand.
Meanwhile, here is another interesting tidbit of business news that likewise has absolutely nothing to do with any Trumps currently occupying the White House. Net sales of Ivanka Trump’s clothing collection increased by $17.9 million in the year ending January 31, according to a new annual report from the company that licenses the clothing. That means the steep decline in sales at Nordstrom, for example, did not put the brand overall into free-fall. But it’s a significantly smaller increase than the previous year.
It’s tempting to connect the flagging performance of the Trumps’ sprawling business empire to public perception of the Trump presidency. Why else would Eric Trump have bragged to the New York Times last month that “our brand is the hottest it has ever been”? And didn’t the Times also report that Ivanka still receives fixed payments from several of the family’s real-estate endeavors, and that she continues to receive financial reports on her company’s performance? And why do so-called “ethics experts” keep using phrases like “tremendous possibility for conflict of interest”? Never mind all that. Rest assured that the fortunes of Ivanka Trump the brand no longer concern Ivanka Trump the woman. The latter stepped down from her management role at the former in January, when her husband was named a senior advisor to the founder of Trump Model Management.
