Opinion: Michelle Obama, Carla Bruni Sarkozy: the fashionistas meet in France

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President Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were kind of wallpaper to their wives’ outfits, mere witnesses to a moment of fashion history between two high-profile women who represent modernity with very different styles.

First Lady Michelle Obama is known for mixing up everyday clothes from J. Crew with designer wear. And even at that, her high-end selections often highlight new emerging American designers such as Jason Wu. Today, she wore a dramatic magenta-and-black dress with matching coat and kitten heels.

Carla Bruni Sarkozy, the former fashion model and singer who married Nicolas Sarkozy last year, is known for glamour and for wearing haute couture. A former girlfriend of Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton (maybe that’s why POTUS was taking a good look?), Carla Sarkozy today opted for gray silk with a dramatic bow at the neck, with flats.

We will leave it to the fashion police to dissect the encounter. Suffice it to say, as the Daily Beast’s Editor Tina Brown breathlessly put it, their meeting was ‘the most delicious, sartorial fashion moment that we are all going to be deconstructing for next two or three weeks.’

So what do you think?

-- Johanna Neuman

Top photo: Michelle Obama, Carla Bruni Sarkozy and their husbands meet.

Philippe Wojazer / Reuters

Eric Feferberg / AFP/Getty Images