Model Success
Interview: Jeremy Taylor Supermodel Carla Bruni has swapped the catwalk for the album chart and success as a singer-songwriter CARLA BRUNI HAS APPEARED in the pages of the world’s most famous fashion magazines, yet the Italian supermodel and heiress says she would much rather be remembered for her music. The 39-year-old brunette has posed [...]
Interview: Jeremy Taylor
Supermodel Carla Bruni has swapped the catwalk for the album chart and success as a singer-songwriter
CARLA BRUNI HAS APPEARED in the pages of the world’s most famous fashion magazines, yet the Italian supermodel and heiress says she would much rather be remembered for her music. The 39-year-old brunette has posed for designers at Prada, Chanel, Christian Dior and Givenchy, making millions by appearing in front of the camera lens.
Her piercing blue eyes have stared out from the front cover of countless glossies, such as Elle and Glamour, while her catwalk strut has meant that she has been called upon to appear at the shows of the couture houses of Yves Saint Laurent, Paco Rabanne and John Galliano among others. Not surprisingly, her sultry, unforgettable looks have also attracted a string of high-profi le suitors, including billionaire Donald Trump, singer Eric Clapton and actors Kevin Costner and Vincent Perez. It’s also led to the controversial relationship with Mick Jagger; Bruni was regarded as being one of the reasons for the split between Jagger and his wife Jerry Hall.
As one of the world’s highest paid models she even caught the attention of fi lm-makers and appeared in movies Prêt-à-Porter, Catwalk and Unzipped. "They were incredible times and I’ve travelled the world enjoying a job that landed on my lap," says Bruni, while promoting her second solo album No Promises in London. It is dedicated to her brother Virginio, who died of cancer last year, and some of the songs have been used on the soundtrack of the movie Conversations with Other Women, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart.
The disc has already topped the Billboard European Chart and follows her 2002 debut hit Someone Told Me. The breathy, Italian and French songs on that album were compared with those penned by modern jazz singers Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux.
"I don’t think I was a very good songwriter at fi rst, especially in English. Then my friend Marianne Faithfull [the iconic 1960s singer and former girlfriend of Mick Jagger] told me to read Shakespeare sonnets. I chose the poems of WB Yeats instead and that worked for me."
Two million albums later and the face that launched a thousand frocks is again laughing all the way to the bank. "I can’t believe how my music has proved so successful," she says. "I’m the child of a composer and a pianist so music has always been in my blood. But when you change your career it’s still a big surprise to discover that other people appreciate your new work."
While Bruni’s career is what countless young girls dream about, the reality is that she didn’t need to work at all. As the daughter of the late Italian business tycoon Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, she was born in Turin, lived in a castle in Piedmont and then moved to Paris at the age of fi ve to escape the threat of kidnap from Italian Communists. Her mother Marysa Borini is a famous concert pianist and encouraged Bruni to take up lessons when she was just nine. It wasn’t long before she was strumming a guitar too.
"My family brought me up well, but once I went to college and left home that was it. I wasn’t given lots of money to waste; I had to earn a living," she insists. After attending an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland, the teenager returned to Paris to study art and architecture. "I thought it would be all about visuals but actually it was more about mathematics! I struggled with it for a while but in the end I dropped out after three months and moved towards modelling. It was so much easier than studying and I was never any good at architecture."
A friend of her late brother encouraged 19-year- old Bruni to pose for her fi rst photo shoot, and the pictures were then mailed to agencies around the country. However, her big break arrived thanks to the French fashion guru Paul Marciano of design label GUESS?, the hugely infl uential house that launched the careers of many a model. The man famous for discovering Claudia Schiffer, Laetitia Casta and Ellen Von Unwerth (who has gone on to become a seminal photographer) spotted Bruni’s picture amongst a heap of hopefuls.
"They asked if I wanted to go to New York on Concorde and I wasn’t going to say no!" Bruni was an overnight sensation. By 1994 designers were queuing up to have the posh model show off their clothes. She was at the top of the must-have list for several catwalk shows, her creamy skin and cats’ eyes turning heads at launches around the world. "Modelling is even more exclusive than my upbringing the fashion world is designed to work around the privileged few. Despite what many people think, though, I was never spoilt because my parents were always drawn to the arts rather than displays of wealth. It’s diffi cult coming from a monied background because you crave credibility. The need you have for work is not the same as that of other people. You need to achieve that credibility for yourself," she explains.
After fi ve years at the top, Bruni announced she was cutting back on her modelling to concentrate on "more creative" work, like music and literature. Like many international supermodels, she had spent years living in London and New York and felt it was time to return to Paris, the city she calls home. "I had lived in Paris most of my life and was happy to go back. It felt like I was in the right place again."
Her fi rst album Someone Told Me refl ected that mood and featured tracks infl uenced by legendary French star Serge Gainsbourg and Joni Mitchell. Again, she was an instant hit.
Bruni now shares a rented fl at with her journalist partner Raphael Enthoven and their fi ve-year-old son Aurelien. "It’s incredibly expensive to buy a nice property in suburban Paris. I know I am a lucky person but I couldn’t afford to buy the sort of house I would like there. I used to live in Saint-Germain- des-Prés. Then I had my son and because there are no parks or schools we moved out. I own a lovely house in St Tropez but it’s hard fi nding time to visit it."
Apparently her "shabby chic" home is crammed with music and books, which help her fi nd inspiration for writing songs. "For my last album I recorded my voice, guitars and strings on an old eight-track system there. It’s important to have an instrument nearby because I often think of something in the middle of the night. I read a lot and Yeats’ poetry is what truly inspires me. He’s such a famous Irish poet that perhaps an Italian girl like me shouldn’t even be talking about him but I think he is one of the greatest writers the world has ever had."
Her days on the catwalk are all but over, but few models can claim to have achieved and earned so much Bruni earned $7.5 million in 1998 alone. And she’s still a favourite with the paparazzi especially when out on the town with her close friends Helena Christensen and Karen Mulder. So does she miss her time in the modelling world? "You only remember the glamorous side, but in truth it is a very tough, lonely world that can grind you down. You have to be strong and take the knocks. Fashion has been very good for me but there are so many girls out there that you need to have an element of luck too. Now when I go into a clothes store in my jeans and sunglasses nobody recognises me and I like that."
Carla Bruni’s album No Promises (on record label Dramatico in the UK, Naïve in France) is out now and available from all good record stores and online retailers as well as FNAC in France
