STATE visits are supposed to be about cutting deals, making treaties and generally reminding Johnny Foreigner that when it comes to pomp, Britain still leads the world.

But thanks to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's grey woollen suit - and all the rest of her exquisite wardrobe - who'll remember any of that?

As the new wife of the president of France and a former model to boot - the embarrassing reminder of that all over the tabloids -it was a given that Mme Sarkozy would fly the fashion flag for her nation.

It was expected she might step out in defiant, racy colours, or maybe a Princess Diana-style pastel suit and killer heels.

(Indeed, one commentator pronounced her outfit "eerily reminiscent" of Diana when she started public life and certainly Camilla's smile seemed eerily fixed, as Prince Charles kissed La Bruni's elegant gloved hand.) But in the event she did neither, preferring to wrap herself in the fashion equivalent of the French tricolour, and sported a demure Dior woollen coat, the colour of a Thames fog.

And a star was born.

Her new husband called for an Entente Amicable; Carla's fashions were one.

Her outfits, even her pumps, were all Dior, evoking memories of the New Look and an era when a fifth of French foreign earnings relied on fashion.

However, because Dior's chief designer is John Galliano, everything she wore would have been overseen by an English designer.

Fashion commentator Hilary Alexander enthused: "Her dress-code could not have been a better-chosen example of entente cordiale at its most diplomatic and stylish."

But there was something else, too.

Mme Sarkozy's wardrobe - princess collars, exquisite cut, 1950s-style handbags and pill-box hats - has evoked other fashion memories, of the state visit to Paris in 1961, when Jackie Kennedy wowed all France with fashions that are very similar to those worn this week by Carla.

"Vive Jacqui", yelled the French crowd, all those years ago, appreciating Mrs Kennedy's appreciation of their most famous couture houses.

They weren't yelling in the streets for Carla this week. But give it time.

And what's the betting that as they left, President Kennedy's bemused comment: "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris," rings very true for President Sarkozy, when he thinks of his first state visit to England.