Fabulous First Ladies

So I have to admit that I have a secret love for first ladies - namely Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni. In some ways I see them as real life Disney Princesses, in that I love them in kind of the same way I love Snow White and Belle (and all the others too!) Mostly I just think they're really pretty; and I like their clothes, and their personalities that come across in pictures, and interviews.

Michelle Obama is super cool for so many reasons: she's a lawyer (obviously a cool profession :), she's from Chicago (a city I've only been to in passing but totally want to really visit), she's tall (5'11 I think! I find it cool she's tall because I've always wanted to be taller... 5'9 would be my ideal height...), her birthday is January 17 (so the day before mine!), she likes J Crew (and always looks super rad in their clothes!), and she seems to have great relationships with her kids, mom and husband. All around, she is very appealing. It's interesting because in Canada, the whole idea of knowing/caring about the 'First Lady' (that term isn't really even used here) is uncommon. I've read maybe one or two articles about Laureen Harper (the Prime Minister's wife) and I've seen a few pictures of her, but I really couldn't tell you very much about her at all. Whereas I know quite a bit (albeit somewhat superficially) about Michelle Obama.

I've liked Carla Bruni since way back in the fall of 2003 when someone gave me a mix cd with two of her songs on them. I loved those songs so much that I bought the whole album. Carla Bruni was so intriguing -- an Italian supermodel, who now lived in Paris and wrote and sang her own songs in French! Her second album came out while I was living in Paris in the spring of 2007, and of course I bought it. She also made a public appearance at a record store near my apt but I couldn't attend, much to my chagrin, because of work. A few months after I left Paris she became romantically involved with the recently elected French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and in February 2008 she married him. My biggest regret was that I wasn't in Paris to read all the Paris Match and other glossy magazines which must have been chronicling their every move. A few months after their marriage, Carla Bruni was on the cover of Vanity Fair and told them she'd voted for Sarkozy's opponent in the French election (albeit before she'd met him, but still) which I thought was very cool.


My love of both of them has most definitely been encouraged by the Huffington Post's Style page. It is such a fun website to visit. It loves putting together slide shows of different models/actors/princesses/first ladies and asking people to vote on which outfit/hair style/shoes are best. I rarely vote, but I do love looking at the pictures! The site regularly has Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni slide shows. My personal favourites have been the slide shows of official state visits or summits when I get to see pictures of the two of them together. The Style Page loves the whole Obama family. There are regularly pictures of them walking across the lawn of the White House either about to board a helicopter to, or having just gotten off one from, Camp David, or on vacation, or walking/playing with the dog, or at any number of other various events. Sometimes it can feel a bit weird to be clicking through picture after picture of this family I don't actually know hiking in Maine or eating ice cream in Hawaii or playing with their dog, but mostly it's just fun so I don't think about it too much.

I definitely recommend checking out the Style Page. Maybe you will start to love Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni too, if you don't already!