Vanity Fair's best-dressed woman - Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

So that arbiter of taste and supplier of news on pop culture, fashion and current affairs, the monthly magazine Vanity Fair, has released its 72nd annual best dressed list.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (screenshot from trailer for Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris")

And as far as the women are concerned the winner is...the former top model-cum singer/actress and France's current first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Yes she of the finely chiselled features, raspy voice and elegantly increasing girth in expectation of a happy event has managed to beat out stiff competition from Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned (the second of the three wives of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar) and the recently-wed Duchess of Cambridge, aka to many still as Kate Middleton.

Perhaps not surprisingly the French media was fawningly quick off the mark to revel in the news.

"French chic - you've heard of it?" trumpeted the weekly glossy Voici.

"Well just to make matters easy, it can be defined in three words, 'Carla Bruni-Sarkozy'," it continued (un)imaginatively.

For fellow celebrity gossip magazine Gala it came as little surprise that Bruni-Sarkozy had made it as Vanity Fair's best dressed women as she had been among the "sartorially superior" for the past four years.

And let's face it, she's not exactly a stranger to the world of high fashion and GLAMOUR.

"She's known for having that refined distinction inherited from being from the upper middle class," it wrote.

"And she has been the flawless hostess at the l’Elysée (palace) with assured taste and a figure allowing her to show off to perfection clothes from some of the greatest fashion designers."

The magazine also delighted in the timing, remarking that while the "Mother-to-be might recently have given up on her Dior dresses and Louboutin shoes, she had also managed to dazzle through her natural beauty at the G8 summit in June where she appeared in her her simple Rogier Verdier-designed wardrobe."

And so it continued with the emphasis being put on Bruni-Sarkozy's "simplicity and elegance" (TF1) or "Vanity Fair having succumbed to Bruni-Sarkozy's charm" (Le Parisien)


But as much of the French media was equally at pains to point out, Bruni-Sarkozy was not the only woman on the list to "embody French style".

Because there at number six was the recently-appointed head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.

You can see the full list - of best-dressed women and men - as well as what Paris Match calls "Vanity Fair's 'ovation' to a certain Kate Middleton'," over on the magazine's site and check out the comments.

They just about say it all.