A renaissance woman

 

What do you do when you have built a living off your looks, and they start to go? After all, “supermodel” is a hard act to follow. From their brief, dizzy reign at the top, the mighty have (mostly) fallen. Linda Evangelista got fat then made a comeback as a “mature” model. Claudia Schiffer was outed embarrassingly as David Copperfield’s paid escort, dabbled unsuccessfully in movies, and faded from view. Naomi is still there, inexplicably, and getting nastier. Only Kate Moss has gone up in the world, and even she has been not without her problems.

But Carla Bruni, on the other hand, has soared to surprising new heights. Alone, she has carved a daring new path, refusing to fade away pathetically as yesterday’s “it girl”. She has become, to me, one of the most fascinating women in the world.

If not quite up there with the Claudia-Naomi-Linda-Kates, Carla was perhaps the world’s sixth or seventh top model in that giddy, glamorous time of the mid-90s when models were all anyone cared about. The daughter of an Italian tycoon, she had been brought to Paris as a child amidst kidnapping fears (Italy was going through one if its unstable kidnap-the-wealthy phases). She studied architecture at university before dropping out to model. With her feline, high cheekboned face, Bruni racked up 250 magazine covers, and pulled in eight million dollars a year. It was even she who broke up the marriage of (the much older) Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, after a lingering affair with Mick.

She was also cast, even more sensationally, as an inter-generational homewrecker in her next relationship (with a much-older man). While going out with a prominent French philosopher, she fell in love with his (married) son, and eventually the two had a child together, before splitting. In an interview, Bruni said: ” I’m monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polyandry (multiple husbands)”

But it was her next act that really astonished. Instead of going the generic bit-parts in forgettable movies route, or working the scandalous/independently wealthy/heiress socialite angle, she turned introspective, learned to play the guitar, and put out an album of gently rocking acoustic chanson numbers. Its quite lovely. “Quelqu’un m’a dit” (”Somebody told me) pulled in generally admiring reviews, and sold 2 million copies. She was a star (in France ). Again.

She released a follow-up late last year, “No Promises”, partly written with Marianne Faithfull, which set English poetry to music.

And, oh…yeah - she is dating the President of France. THE PRESIDENT. After being snapped on holiday together in Egypt, Sarkovsky held a press conference last month, saying that the pair were serious, and even hinting at marriage ( a polyandrous marriage?)

Italian imigrant, heiress, model, the seductress and the destroyer, muse of philosophers and musicians, the songbird, then the arty poetess, soon to be the first lady of France?

An interesting life…