Lack of dignity is the antithesis of style, so why this mentioning?
It is because, when I was searching for pictures of one of the great style icons of the last century, Jacqueline Kennedy, Cecilia Sarkozy kept popping up at an undue number of times.
The comparison made me angry and when I'm angry I'm usually at my most effective. So I started to do my own little bit of research and here are some of the results:
The Sarkozys at an informal occasion.
The Kennedys at an informal occasion.
Cecilia at an official occasion and yes, I suppose we CAN be grateful that she at least shaved her armpits.
Jackie at an official occasion.
Cecilia in - no lie - formal evening dress.
Jackie in formal evening dress (Oleg Cassini). Btw. it's worthwhile comparing husbands as well.
Cecilia in ... well, whatever.
Jackie in Cassini.
Can somebody enlighten me what ON EARTH makes the international shmock brigade compare that insipid, wan, nondescript, scruffy woman with her teeth running down her throat with the most glamorous, sparkling, stylish, beautiful woman who ever graced the stage of international politics? Or describe that mediocre, bedraggled couple as "glamorous"? (60,300 Google hits for "sarkozy" and "glamorous"!)
Does one have just to be slimmer than Angela Merkel? Prettier than Golda Meir? Younger than Madame DeGaulle? Is that really enough? Wow! The media must have ADORED Maggie Thatcher - the sex symbol! But then, Maggie was so boring. Thought she had a job to do. As did all the many other two-timed wives in the Elysée. They were no feminists, after all.
Is it forgotten already that Jacqeline with her several academic degrees kept her mouth firmly shut about politics whereas Cecilia, the drop-out student, thought making a good impression at her husbands side wasn't enough for HER HER HER HER?
Forgotten already that Jackie remained the picture of dignity in the face of "Jacks" horrific womanizing (alright, she fleeced Old Joe Kennedy mercilessly in exchange, but at least she kept her side of the bargain) whereas this woman is now publicly whining about her sordid, boring, middleaged, petty bourgeois marital problems?
Will the world find it worthwhile to exhibit Cecilias dresses forty years after her entry into the Elysée?
As Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg put it: "For me and for those who knew my mother, she will always be a part of us, and of our lives, and she will always grace the history she helped to make. With her own sense of style, she interpreted these values and represented President Kennedy and America in a way that captured the world and still does."
What history did Cecilia Sarkozy help to make?
There is plenty of evidence in the Internet that the Sarkozys did dot just suffer such a preposterous comparison gladly, but that they positively encouraged it:
And we, the public? Are we all out of our minds that we swallow something like that without demur? Gosh, I even don't like the Kennedys and I'm more than just a bit critical when it comes to their political heritage, but THAT comparison shows how far we have gone down the drain towards yobbofication already.
