Whatever you think of her music or politics, you’ve got to applaud her honesty. In an interview in the latest French Vogue the Italian supermodel and mother of two (including year old Guilia with the former president) confesses pregnancy wasn’t for her:
‘there are women who like it. In the eight month, I wanted to go on a trampoline, smoke cigarettes.’
Rumours she did in fact keep puffing on her Vogue menthols throughout her pregnancy are, it seems, just rumours. Good job too as it’s almost enough to be burnt at the stake on morning telly if Stacey Solomon’s inability to give up was anything to go by.
At least Carla admits to craving fags. I did too, after the first 3 months. This is in contrast to most pregnant women who seem compelled to adopt a Virgin Mary stance and forgo everything from stinky cheese to nail polish. So her admission is, for me at least, a breath of fresh air (well, quite the opposite but you get the idea).
It’s not this, however, that has got up the noses of some women. It’s Carla’s remarks about playing the part of the dutiful wife and stay-at-home-mum that have incensed feminists, particularly this side of the Channel:
‘I’m not at all an active feminist…On the contrary, I’m a bourgeois. I love family life, I love doing the same thing every day.’
Does this highlight a greater willingness by French women to embrace a more feminine version of marriage and motherhood – the current president’s career-driven girlfriend being, in comparison, the exception that proves the rule? Or is this just the insensitive ramblings of an heiress with too much money and time on her hands and not enough brains?
For Fay Weldon, author of Wicked Women, it’s the latter:
‘Just because a woman stays at home to look after the children, it doesn’t mean she is devoid of a brain – though I suspect that Carla is. Many housewives dream of going on to work when their children leave home, of training to be a doctor or whatever. These things are often a matter of income, not intellect.’
Thank heavens she didn’t say a bad word about breastfeeding – an experience she describes as ‘absolutely sensual’. Not words that immediately spring to my mind but at least I believe her.
basin of gravy 