Carla Bruni: Emmanuelle Alt Hasn't Had Surgery

We often forget that French Vogue, Vogue Italia and the nearly dozen other international editions of the famed fashion mag are all cousins, if you will, of the original, Anna Wintour's Vogue.

But this month Wintour and her American editors turned the spotlight on their French Vogue colleague Emmanuelle Alt, the editor-in-chief of the Parisian publication since Carine Roitfeld's highly publicized departure.

Mark Holgate spoke to Alt as well as her close friend Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who had very lovely and very French things to say about her pal:

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy thinks Alt isn’t alone; that the extremely codified and elaborate approach Frenchwomen take to self-presentation is changing. "Emmanuelle has an unaffected way to be feminine," Bruni-Sarkozy says. "She doesn't wear makeup, wears little jewelry, hasn't had surgery. She reflects how Frenchwomen are feeling—simplicity is the state we all want to be in. We are tired of useless sophistication."

Bruni-Sarkozy goes on to say that when it comes to her friend, "there is still something of a teenager about her."

Oh Parisian women, making us all feel overly self-conscious and superficial with our plastic surgery and makeup. Incidentally, Bruni-Sarkozy possesses quite a different kind of Parisian style (simple, clean, unadorned) than her friend Alt (semi-grungy, lived-in, insouciant) -- but either version puts American women, Anna Wintour included, to shame.

To read more about the wonder that is Alt, hop over to Vogue.com.