The new Jackie O? How Carla Bruni is channeling Mrs Kennedy as she bids to become fashion's First Lady
on 25th September 2009
She’s considered to be one of the most glamorous First Lady’s of the moment but Carla Bruni looked to have borrowed from the most famous of them all as she arrived at the G20 Summit.
Dressed in an elegant oatmeal jacket with a matching dress, the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy was a dead ringer for Jackie Kennedy Onassis as she arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport in Coraopolis.
The 41-year-old, who usually wears flats as her husband is shorter than her, opted for heels for the occasion and was every inch the grace and poise of Jackie O.
Elegant: Carla Bruni was very Jackie Kennedy-esque as she towered over her husband Nicholas Sarkozy during a visit to Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania yesterday
Channeling Jackie O: Carla was the mirror image of Mrs Kennedy, pictured with John F Kennedy in 1961, as she arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport for the G20 Summit
Carla has previously won praise from fashion experts for her classic and timeless style and was voted one of the most stylish people in the world.
Her look has frequently been compared to that of Mrs Kennedy who was renowned for her sense of style, particularly during her husband's presidency.
The high-necked grey coat and matching hat which Carla wore during a state visit to Britain with her husband last year was remarkably similar to an ensemble previously worn by Mrs Kennedy.
Style stealer: French First Lady Carla Bruni in a lilac suit earlier this year (left) and Jackie Kennedy in a similar outfit during a trip to Cambodia in 1967
‘My first impression was that it was kind of Jackie Kennedy meets Madeline the little French schoolgirl,' Lucy Yeomans, editor of Harper's Bazaar, said of the look.
Unsurprisingly Carla has admitted that she is happy to be compared to John F Kennedy's wife.
‘She was so young and modern,’ she told Vanity Fair magazine last year.
Timeless: Mrs Sarkozy dons a classic black dress to the G20 Summit dinner yesterday and Jackie O in Ireland in an undated picture (right)
Vision in white: Carla Bruni at the Elysee Palace in Paris earlier this year and Mrs Kennedy in Queens, New York in 1959
‘Unconsciously I would project myself more like Jackie Kennedy than for instance, Madame de Gaulle, who would be much more like the classical French woman behind her husband.’
John F Kennedy famously said on his first visit to France as US President that he was simply the ‘man who came to Paris with Jackie Kennedy’ and Carla has certainly managed to put her husband in the shade.
However it seems unlikely that the former girlfriend of Rolling Stones star Mick Jagger will have the staying power of Jackie, who remained one of the most admired women in the world up until her death in 1994.
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