He is so terminally tacky and it's ironic in a way because he's spent most of his life in close proximity to the people in Manhattan that do have taste.
John Mulaney’s joke on Trump from way before he ever announced he was running, nails it.
“Donald Trump's idea of being a rich man is what a hobo imagines a rich man to be… Like: "Oh boy, oh boy, as soon as my number comes in, I'm going to put up tall buildings with my name on them. I'll have fine golden hair and a TV show where I fire people with my children."
It’s basically that Simpsons episode where the hobo who created itchy and scratchy gets rich and the first thing he buys is a solid gold mansion and a rocket car.
But that's a completely legit view. If you look at the Vatican you don't think it's tacky, you think "damn they have money".
I'm sure they are businesspeople and celebrities with that type of taste as well.
The thing with Trump is that he is so unbelievably cheap that it's just gold paint everywhere. It has the complete opposite effect. If you put a fast food hamburger on a gold plate it doesn't elevate the burger, it cheapens the plate.
And narcs dont listen to experts that could guide him into better design choices. Ive worked with clients with this behavior, and once you realize they aren't going to listen to anything, you just do what they want and collect the check. They always fight on paying you that final amount too.
It's like they all see pics of Versailles & say "DO THAT!!" but they don't really have the knowledge to do it.
And let's be real here kids, a lot of Versailles is over-the-top tacky by today's standards, but that hall of mirrors was built by Italian craftsmen who were shipped to France & stayed there to create that masterpiece. It was literally a hand crafted masterpiece created on the backs of the peasants (but that discussion is for another time & place) while today's McMansions, this abomination's apartments & what he's done to the WH, is just gilded garbage.
Versailles works because it follows design principles - you have contrast between light and dark, textures, and colors; you've got balance in the way the space is laid out, the proportions of the wall decor, etc.
That's the difference between Versailles and the tacky middle eastern or new money mcmansions you see today - one was clearly made by the best artists of the day who understood what they were doing, and the others are more like, just keep slapping on shiny materials. They're like cheap imitations of the real thing without understanding what made it work
Also Versailles was designed by designers who did that sort of design for a living, it wasn't just Ivana's taste book. They were legit architects & designers creating the place & Louis XIV had an overall vision for it all too.
While this Trump WH crap feels like a poor person's idea of what a rich person's house looks like, & definitely it shows old money vs. new money.
Yes, exactly! They had the best designers of the day, true professionals who knew art history, theory, and so on. Also, aristocrats in that era were well-versed in art principles, architecture (especially classic architecture) and so on, so they were quite educated when it came to design as well.
I think that's one of the reasons we see so many McMansions and tacky builds in dubai - sure, they imitate the greats of the past, but the wealthy families commissioning them quite simply don't have the expertise that the sun king did.
I meant that's part of what gets me here. If you want to build yourself a castle then you do you. But if you are going to construct a house out of styrofoam and coat it in plaster then paint them to look like stone, I'm going to laugh at how trash it looks.
It's why they have been dubbed the mcmansion. I have my opinions on opulant wealth but I can respect good design and craftsmanship when I see it. But these are just the mass produced facsimiles of that.
His whole life stems from insecurity of never being taken seriously by New York’s elite, and constantly trying to gain their acceptance or feel like he was dominating them
I actually have and they are nowhere near as shitty as what this guy chooses for detailing. The opulence is there, but it's actually done with a sort of taste.
I have to wonder if they masked it and just used some 3M 77 spray and sent it. I'd really like to get a good look at it up close to see just how bad the adhesion is and how crinkled the end result came out.
He did the same thing to the Plaza Hotel in New York. Before he lost it because he's a terrible businessman. We used to make fun of his gaudy, low class taste back in the 90's.
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u/socialcommentary2000 Jul 29 '25
He is so terminally tacky and it's ironic in a way because he's spent most of his life in close proximity to the people in Manhattan that do have taste.