Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

The Fashion Statement: Fashion's First Lady

We know the First Lady has style. But did you know she was responsible for $2.7 billion in fashion sales at the height of the recession?

In a story published this week by the Harvard Business Review, Michelle Obama made more than 189 public appearances clothed in 29 brands between November, 2008, and December, 2009. After each of those appearances, fashionistas ran out to buy something from whatever label she wore, generating an average of $14 million in sales. This in turn affected the company's stock price which sometimes remained at an elevated level for weeks.

A celebrity's power is nothing new to the fashion world. But it turns out Michelle Obama is the holy grail of celebrity endorsements.

The HBR interviewed David Yermack, professor at NYU's Stern School, who found that following 18 of Mrs. Obama's public appearances, sales of whatever fashion brand or designer she chose to wear shot up 2.3 percent. A celebrity endorser-one like Sarah Jessica Parker for Halston, for instance-might only account for a 0.5 percent rise in sales. Not even other first ladies hold this kind of sway. The article pointed out that French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy sticks with one label-Dior-and most people can't afford the brand. Mrs. Obama, by contrast, mixes designer clothing with accessible brands like J. Crew.

Tags: carla bruni-sarkozy, David Yermack, Harvard Business Review, J. Crew, Michelle Obama

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Nicolas Sarkozy's New Presidential Plane Gets A Test Flight

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Looks like it will soon be wheels up for French President Nicolas Sarkozy. His new plane, a specially outfitted Airbus A330-200 has had its first test flight in Bordeaux. The $235 million plane is Sarkozy's answer to Air Force One (Obama rides in a Boeing 747-200) and comes with a 12-man meeting room, 60 business class seats, a bedroom for the president, a shower and an air filter system so he can smoke cigars. It is protected by a top-grade encrypted communications systems, a reinforced fuselage and missile decoy system. The ten-year-old plane was bought from Air Caraibes, the Caribbean airline. Two smaller A319s are currently used for the French President and will be sold. He has also ordered two Falcon 7Xs for smaller, shorter trips. One of the planes is reportedly named the Carla One after Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni.

According to an article in the Telegraph, the French government denies that the plane is an extravagance. A government spokesperson said that the plane isn't ostentatious but is "equipment fitting for the world's fifth power." Sarkozy has been under fire for his luxury spending before. His lavish trips around the world and time spent in private jets and on lavish yachts has raised eyebrows.

Tags: Airbus, Carla Bruni, carla bruni-sarkozy, france, Nicolas Sarkozy

Carla Bruni's Castle Back on the Market for $28 Million, Estate of the Day

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Wealth

Back in February we reported that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the sexy supermodel, singer and first lady of France, had sold her family's castle in Italy (above) to an Arab sheikh. Now the buyer, who has since been revealed as billionaire Saudi businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has relisted the historic castle with an affiliate of Christie's Great Estates with a reported asking price of about $28 million; he was said to have originally paid anywhere from $12 million - $25 million depending on sources. The 40-room, 21,000-sq.-ft. Castello di Castagneto Po, near Turin, has been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt over the years but is believed to first date from the year 1019. Bruni's father, the billionaire industrialist Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, bought the historic estate in 1952 for about $1.5 million. It is surrounded by 175 acres replete with vegetable gardens, orchards, flowering terraces, ancient greenhouses, a caretaker's house and a farm building.

Gallery: Carla Bruni's Castle