Why French Women Are Embracing New First Lady Valérie Trierweiler's Style Over ...

22.05.12

PARIS–This past weekend, France didn’t only elect socialist François Hollande as its new president; the country also welcomed a first lady diametrically opposed to Carla Bruni .

Please meet Valérie Trierweiler , described by the French press “a normal woman.” A 47-year-old journalist sans Botox, divorced with three children, she is not François’s new wife but long-term girlfriend–a definite novelty for the Elysée (France’s equivalent of the White House).

Valérie grew up in the provincial town of Angers. Her father passed away when she was young, and she was raised by her mother, a receptionist at the city’s ice-skating ring-–lightyears away from Carla’s upper class upbringing between Italy and Paris’s glitziest schools.

Carla astonished the world with her raunchy past, brief singing career, and radical makeover upon her engagement to Sarkozy (prior to which she claimed to be ‘forever left wing’). Her Chanel suits and Chaumet jewelry presented her to the world as the country’s ambassador of chic. But back in France, her popularity was plummeting–not only was she nicknamed ‘a wannabe Jackie Kennedy’, but her taste for luxury also received increasingly bitter reactions as her country fell deeper in a recession.

Source: Fashionista