Buffalo Gal

The British press (the non-tabloids like the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph) are agog over the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife of 2 months, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The Brits are evaluating the wife far more than the President.  There are enough photos in the British papers to make one think she is the new Diana.  Her clothes, her hair, her hat, her shoes…are all topics of conversation media-wise. Due to her carefully staged conservative appearance….grey shades, long grey coat, tiny gray hat on the back of her head, Christian Dior shoes (flats so she does not tower over her 5’5" husband) have caused one not-so-respectful columnist to refer to Carla as "Jackie Kennedy dressed as a Nun."

Because Carla Bruni Sarkozy is of Amazonian proportions, she wears flat shoes, does not wear hats that elevate her height, and she purposefully tries to walk behind her height-challenged husband or stands below him when he is on a platform or steps.  Nice girl…she knows where her bread is buttered.

The "Cats" have unsheathed their claws in the Daily Telegraph, one of London’s leading newspapers.   When the Sarkozys arrived a couple of days ago, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles-Windsor met them at the airport where Charles gallantly kissed Carla’s gloved hand.  Carla and Camilla have something in common, if not looks,( Camilla is looking more and more like Clementine Churchill these days)  they are both infamous for their infidelities to men in their lives.  Carla Bruni’s reputation as a bedder of rock stars preceded her to the title of First Lady of France and Camilla’s pecadillos with the married Prince Charles have been covered in great detail for years by the British press.  Camilla  is not among their favorites, that is for sure.  

 Amanda Platell, columnist for the Daily Telegraph, describes the glaring difference between the splendid outfits of Mme. Sarkozy and Camilla Wales/Windsor.   Carla was attired throughout the first day of her visit in various shades of greys.  Camilla came to the

airport wearing what Platell described in this way:   " ….it looked as if she {Camilla} had given up all hope, dressed in what appeared to be an aged cleaning lady’s old brown coat topped with a hat that looked like a beret upon which a dead pheasant had crash-landed.  Wild feathers, sticking out in all directions, it wasn’t a hat, it was a road kill."   A color photo of Camilla confirmed the description by Ms. Platell….the coat was a strange brown one with fake leopard-print cuffs and the hat did, indeed, look like a dead pheasant.

Carla’s choice of a tiny hat perched on the back of her head was described as an attempt not to upstage the "Queen’s jolly millinery."  It seems all the Royal ladies in Britain are well known for their extremely feathery or flower-covered hats.  The Queen owns hundreds of these fairy tale hats and so does her daughter Anne and her former daughters in law, Diana and "Fergie".  One does not soon forget the hats that the good Queen Mum, Elizabeth and teh Princess Margaret wore in thier days as  Royals.

It is comforting to see that the press can get off the track every now and then from politics as usual and take a flight of catty fancy over the bride of Nicolas Sarkozy, who is pictured cuddling with his new wife aboard a boat on the river Thames.

It is "deja vu all over again" with Carla now reigning as the Jackie Kennedy- in- Paris in the 1960′s and Princess Diana reigning as the darling of the paparazzi in the 1980′s until her death in the mid 1990′s.  Sarkozy himself (a deep man it seems) wants his bride to become the "Gallic Diana". 

  Long live the queens of fashion, as crowned by the Press in Britain and France.