Modern French Style Icons

"I'm not at all the androgynous type. When I was young, I admired Jane Birkin and Audrey Hepburn. They are always the icons of us flat-breasted girls, because they are so sexy, even without breasts. When I was 15 years old, I wished I had a Brigitte Bardot body, but at the same time there was something elegant about Audrey Hepburn that Bardot never had. . . . There is something more lasting in being thin and elegant. I admire elegance over ultraflashiness," Bruni says of her style. "It must be an embarrassment for the wives of other heads of state to see this beautiful creature who can wear anything," Karl Lagerfeld has said about the former model.

At left, Bruni with husband Nicolas Sarkozy in India in December 2010.