Carla Bruni first came onto my radar screen when my mother had her first stroke. That was in 1995. We were talking about what images of a woman's whole body she wanted to have on the dreamboard that we were making for her to go by her bed. At the time, my mother had just been accepted at Central St Martin's, the illustrious art school in London and as part of her portfolio she had been studying female nudes. As I went through all my mother's art stuff looking for the image of "the most beautiful young Italian woman", as my mother had described her. I wondered if I would indeed be able to pick Carla Bruni out from the boxful of images.

There was no question. As I picked up the postcard of the now-famous photograph of Carla Bruni, it was the only one which fitted my mother's description. I was intrigued by her. As I flicked through fashion magazines I would pick her out on the catwalk. Even on the page her nobility, grace and poise shone through. Of course, in the gossipy magazines she also featured as she was romantically linked with some of the most famous, or indeed infamous, studs around. Although some of the comments about her were far from flattering I realised that each man she was photographed with believed, truly believed, that he was the only man in the world, not just her world, but the whole world.

Sarkozy and his relationship with his now ex-wife has also made for interesting and illuminating reading. Much has been made of how she left him for another man, then was persuaded back to the marital bed while he stood for President, and then how she left him again. Sarkozy undoubtedly, has that Gallic gene of loving being around ladies. Even the French press, with their stringent privacy laws, were loving the guessing game of who's the next Mrs S and the new First Lady of France. Monsieur Le President was happy to give them something to distract them from the woes of the state of the French nation.

When Sarkozy introduced Carla Bruni to the world as his new inamorata, there was a collective intake of breath. The press focussed on the sheer magnitude of her previous male conquests. I'm not entirely sure of what the mood of French women was, but in England there was a lot of "she's not that great, really I don't know what the fuss is, she's destroyed some marriages along the way, broken lots of hearts, and it can't be natural to be that beautiful." Bitchy in other words.

As soon as the news broke I was hooked. Here was a man, whom his advisers leaked to the press, was very low, fed-up and making their lives miserable. Here was a man who needs a woman. Nothing else would do for him. Here was a woman, of breeding, success, education in many arts and grace who needed to be stretched to enter a new phase in her life, to conquer the ennui she felt. Here was a nation in dire need of the inspiration of a woman to rally around.

And, of course, the British have played their part. It became known that the Queen would expect to follow protocol in welcoming the new French First Lady, as the President's lawful wedded wife. I'm sure that love at first sight had already taken care of that, but it's somehow nice to imagine that the Royal standards were upheld in this story.

The morning that M et Mme Le President de France arrived in London, Christie's the auctioneers, were launching a sale of some photographs of the new Mrs. Sarkozy, nude. It's not everyday that you go on an official visit knowing that everyone has already seen you with your kit off while they were eating their marmalade and toast and knocking back a stiff cup of coffee. She put a spring in the step of every Englishman before the day had even got under way.

By mid-afternoon the photographs of the French State Visit were landing in our in-boxes. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, dressed so innocently and demurely with a glint in her eye, then melted all the hearts of England. Even the women. At first there was a little bitching - she looked like an air-hostess, she was too thin - but it lasted as long as out-of-season snow and by the evening we were all hers. The harshest thing we Englishwomen had to accept, because the evidence was right before our eyes, was that collectively, royal, ministerial or the-woman-on-the-street, we all looked dowdy, crumpled, chubby, frumpy, and inappropriately inelegant.

Look around at the women upon whom we as a society lavish our attention. We all know examples of women born into rich industrial families or aristocracy. We see women with highly successful careers. We obsess over the lives of women in the fashion and music industries. How many of them inspire you because they are truly elegant and graceful women?

And this is what Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is. Being a super-model is no walk in the park. Being around such famous men as Eric Clapton, Mike Jagger and Donald Trump I guess is no walk in the park either. Being born into a successful family with the probable pressures to perform probably isn't as lovely as it sounds. Being brought up a foreigner in Paris isn't so fantastic either. And these are all the breeding ground for what made her inspire not just the French to rekindle their rallying cry to Marianne, their national mythical muse, but also the English to raise their feminine game.

Yesterday the Sunday Times had a photo feature on Carla Bruni, shot by Claude Gassian, a photographer whom she knows. Sadly the online version only includes one cropped image. The one which will have had every man in England wistfully gazing into his soggy cornflakes as he distractedly poured too much milk into the bowl because he had his eyes elsewhere, is the one I've featured here. Every man longs, needs, wants, no more than that, he yearns to have that power to address his world (here it's Sarkozy addressing both the Houses of Parliament, from that you can read what you like into Anglo-French relations) with the most beautiful woman in the world, successful in her own right sitting behind him, giving him 100% attention, supporting and not competing with him.

Every woman needs to look very carefully at this image and assess how she supports, inspires and uplifts the men in her life without competition. For this reason alone I vote this one of the iconic images of our time.

Five reasons why Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is a Regally Graceful™ Woman:

1. She is successful in her own right
2. She knows how to make a man feel as though he is the only man in the world
3. She knows how to dress sensuously so that every man wants her but all know that she is beyond them
4. She sits elegantly, walks with poise, and engages alluringly
5. She looks as good clothed at 40 as she did nude at 25