Which specific Paris modeling agencies represented Melania Trump in the 1990s?

1. Metropolitan Models: the clearest Paris connection

The strongest and most consistently reported Paris affiliation is with Metropolitan Models via Paolo Zampolli, who is named repeatedly in mainstream profiles as the agent Melania met in Paris and who subsequently arranged her move to New York ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Contemporary coverage and later profiles describe Zampolli as a scouting co‑owner of Metropolitan who encountered Melania in Paris in the mid‑1990s and helped her secure work and an American visa sponsorship—an account that appears across multiple outlets and biographical summaries ^{[1] [2]}. Victoria Silvstedt, who shared a Paris apartment with Melania, places her in the same Paris modeling milieu as Metropolitan, reinforcing the centrality of Zampolli’s firm to Melania’s Paris years ^[4].

2. Other Paris names in the reporting: Marilyn Gauthier and Karin Models

Beyond Metropolitan, some reporting places Melania in Parisian orbit with other agents or houses. WWD’s retrospective mentions Melania modeled “for Marilyn Gauthier” while living in Paris in the mid‑1990s, a detail offered by contemporaries in fashion circles ^[4]. Separately, a post‑2025 piece alleges Melania worked with Karin Models, an agency associated in reporting with Jean‑Luc Brunel—an allegation that ties into wider controversies about Brunel’s practices but comes from a site with a particular political viewpoint and limited corroboration in the core contemporaneous coverage ^[5]. These additional names appear in the record but carry varying degrees of sourcing and should be treated as less firmly established than the Metropolitan connection ^{[4] [5]}.

3. Milan roots, a Paris period, and how the sources overlap

Most profiles trace a trajectory from RVR Reclame in Milan to Paris, then to Zampolli’s Metropolitan and New York; RVR is cited as Melania’s early Milan agency and confirms she was active in Italy before Paris ^[6]. Sources therefore collectively create a coherent timeline—Milan (RVR) → Paris (working in fashion houses and in Zampolli’s orbit) → New York under Metropolitan’s patronage—that helps explain why Metropolitan is the best‑documented Paris representative ^{[6] [1] [2]}.

4. Conflicting accounts, agendas, and evidentiary limits

The record contains tensions: some outlets emphasize Zampolli and Metropolitan as the linchpin of Melania’s Paris‑to‑New‑York transition ^{[1] [2]}, while other pieces—often from later, more politically charged retrospectives—attach her to figures such as Jean‑Luc Brunel or cite unnamed Paris contacts ^[5]. Those latter claims are entangled with investigations into Brunel and with political narratives about elites and model recruitment; they are not uniformly corroborated by contemporaneous fashion reporting or mainstream biographies, so the possibility of agenda‑driven linkage must be acknowledged ^[5]. Where mainstream fashion reporting and first‑hand recollections exist, they center on Metropolitan/Paolo Zampolli ^[4].

5. Bottom line and what remains unproven

Taken together, the contemporaneous and widely cited sources identify Metropolitan Models—through Paolo Zampolli—as the specific Paris agency most directly tied to Melania Trump in the 1990s and as the actor who facilitated her U.S. work ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Other Paris names, including Marilyn Gauthier and Karin Models/Jean‑Luc Brunel, appear in some reporting but lack consistent, independent corroboration across the mainstream biographies and fashion press consulted here ^{[4] [5]}. This assessment reflects the limits of the available reporting: if a definitive Paris agency roster beyond Metropolitan is required, the public record in these sources is incomplete and produces divergent claims rather than a single, fully documented list ^{[1] [4] [5]}.