Material World

Outgoing French president Nicolas Sarkozy is escorted by France's new president François Hollande. Getty Images

Watching François  Hollande be sworn in as the new French president today, I was struck by how incredibly color-coordinated the hand-over of power was. I know it wasn’t planned – the Hollande and Sarkozy camps are not that friendly – but Tim Gunn couldn’t have styled it better if he’d tried.

First, as if to acknowledge the serious state in which the country finds itself, as well as the choice they made by choosing the non-blingy Mr Hollande over the slicker Mr Sarkozy, both outgoing and incoming head of state dressed pretty much entirely in black and white (So Hollande had a navy tie on, but in photos it read black-ish, just like Mr Sarkozy’s) – as did their partners, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Valerie Trierweiler. It may be the last time things are quite so cut and dried for any of them, but it did make for a crisp, no-nonsense set of pictures that presented a picture of unity, in a we-all-want-what’s-best-for-the-state sort of way.

Meanwhile, both Mr Sarkozy and his wife wore almost matching pinstriped trouser suits and white shirts, as if to demonstrate their own united front as they head off into private life and put paid to the speculation, recently floated, that Ms Bruni-Sarkozy had been frumping herself up for election purposes. Her look now seems to say, the election is over, I haven’t changed.

All in all, it was a dramatic contrast to the last French presidential inauguration, when Mr Sarkozy and his then-wife, Cecilia both strolled into the Elysee clad in Prada: a clear message that a new sort of political brand had arrived.