Ivanka Trump

LOOKING almost demure in a tailored gray coat, Ivanka Trump stepped onto a makeshift stage to greet the construction crew at Trump SoHo, a new condominium and hotel in downtown Manhattan. The occasion, a topping-off party to celebrate the project’s near completion, was raucous.

Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Damon Winter/The New York Times

Ms. Trump has inherited a high-profile life that includes a boutique on Madison Avenue.

“We love you, Ivanka,” one of the workmen bellowed between man-size bites of sausage, his shout followed by a chorus of “Ivanka, you’re the best.”

No stranger to that sort of overwrought reception, Ms. Trump, the daughter of the real estate magnate Donald Trump, received the homage with aplomb. She stood to thank the men, well aware that her understated coat did little to conceal her curves or dim the sheen of the Champagne-color hair that cascaded past her shoulders.

Just a few hours earlier at her office in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, she had acknowledged that there are distinct advantages to “being young, blond and, if you will, looking a certain way.”

“I’m 26,” Ms. Trump said, “and I tell myself, ‘Why not have a little fun with that?’ ”

Seeing her swan alongside Mr. Trump on “The Apprentice,” or vamp demiclad in the pages of a fashion magazine, an observer could be forgiven for sizing her up as a bit of garnish on her father’s multilayered business operation. If they do, “That’s O.K.,” Ms. Trump said evenly. Seated somewhat rigidly in a fan-backed leather chair, she pointed out that it is she, after all, who will have the last word.

“As a principal of this company, I negotiate all the deals I’m working on,” she said. “If people think I’m just the boss’s daughter, they’re deceived.”

Clearly, Ms. Trump has inherited her father’s prodigious flair for self-promotion. On the face of it, Mr. Trump rules a real estate empire of 70 properties. But in some ways, he is the Pierre Cardin of the real estate world, a licensing pioneer who has sold the right to use his name on dozens of luxury projects, charging 8 to 15 percent of the gross, according to Forbes magazine, which calculates his net worth as billion. (Mr. Trump, who disputes the Forbes ranking, says the figure is billion.)

Ms. Trump is just as able a master of self-packaging. Her father’s daughter to the bone, she says she has harnessed her energies — to say nothing of television guest spots on “Oprah” and “Project Runway” and nights on the town on the arm of Jared Kushner, the real estate heir and publisher — in service of the Trump brand.

Then there are her exuberant displays of thigh and cleavage in the laddie book Stuff, and in Arena, the progressive British glossy. In October’s Harper’s Bazaar, she was photographed reclining in a dress slit to her thighs, a burly half-naked construction worker pounding a jackhammer at her feet.

In conversation Ms. Trump is unabashed. If her brash antics prompt people to question her competence, “I’m fine with that,” she said. Paraphrasing one of her father’s favorite maxims, she was quick to add, “It’s the end result that counts.”

A full wall in her office is papered with magazine covers emblazoned with her image: Southern Seasons, on the occasion of a new Trump project in Atlanta; New York magazine; and Elle Mexico. (“That last allowed us to appeal to a female buyer,” she said.)

Each cover, she said, represents a calculated effort to promote the family name. “What other developer could generate that sort of publicity for free?”

Although Ms. Trump shares responsibility for the development of several dozen properties with her brothers Donald Jr., 29, and Eric, 23, her recent high visibility has suggested to some that she is her father’s heir apparent.

But Mr. Trump made it clear that he has no plans to anoint a sole successor. “I have three children who are of age,” he said. “I’d like to see them work together.”

Last summer Ms. Trump was named vice president for acquisitions and development of the Trump Organization; within days she visited Dubai to negotiate a deal for four Trump towers, then flew to Mexico, Panama, Hawaii and finally Chicago, where she was to oversee the construction of a hotel tower.

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