The IMF is about to get a style bail-out

USP – an acronym with many meanings, but at Looking Our Best it stands for Ultra Stylish Person.  We’re not saying this because LOB is Irish and she is the leader of the International Monetary Fund in waiting, but we salute (and no grovelling) French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde as the elegant number one in our current USP list of femmes d’un certain age.

A former corporate lawyer, and ranked by Forbes magazine in 2009 as the best finance minister in the eurozone, this chic 55 year old epitomises what it is to look smart. Literally.  Articulate, un-ruffled (you’ll never see her in any frills or fripperies), she’s also just a fraction shy of six feet tall, so we can’t wait to see her calling all those dreary men in suits to attention while looking like a Chanel model.  What to wear at fifty-something when desperately short of inspiration? Mme Lagarde is the one to give the imagination a style bail out.    And there you were, thinking Carla Bruni was the French first lady....