When I edited French Vogue a decade ago, Carla Bruni was one of the models on the runway for practically every show: couture, ready to wear, smaller houses, big boring houses that no one cared about, promotional shows, probably even car shows. She had a perfect body, kept in shape, she told me in soldier tones, by hours on the treadmill and the Stairmaster. She didn’t make it sound much fun. Her sister, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, a very funny actress who has also directed, had a craggy aristocratic face, but Carla’s face was a smooth oval, a little like a doll. My art director explained that we couldn’t put her on the cover because she simply didn’t have enough features.

I spent so much time in those days looking at girls parade in their dresses that I’d go into a reverie and sometimes get an insight about this girl or that one. One day, while sitting in a theater watching evening dresses in primary colors but of no particular shape being walked around by a horde of beautiful models, I had the insight that Carla, standing like a pillar in a bright yellow dress, was one tough customer.

I knew about her little moment with Mick Jagger. There’d almost been an incident at my house when Jerry Hall spotted her, and needed to be distracted rapidly before a catfight erupted. I knew about Eric Clapton. But I didn’t know that Carla would go on to date the president of France. She was funny and outgoing, curious and rather in your face. Her Italian family was aristocratic, rich, with impeccable intellectual credentials; she was afraid of no one.

Most models, when they aren’t extroverts or high on something, have a peculiar, recessive, uncomfortable mien that drives men wild: "Honey, let me help you get though life." And irritates women: "Hello? Hello? Hello? Are you there?" Carla, on the other hand, could talk to anyone.