When Carla Bruni-Sarkozy launched a lavish website intended to show off her work as France’s First Lady it crashed within minutes of launching.

The site, http://www.carlabrunisarkozy.org, offers an inside look at Bruni-Sarkozy’s jet-setting, good-will-mission-filled life with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whom she married after a whirlwind romance last year. “We want to inform the general public of the causes which motivate Carla Bruni-Sarkozy by bringing together in the same space all the information about her activities,” said Julien Civange, a music composer and producer who created the site. “The accent is on the causes she defends rather than on herself.”

The site is the first of its kind and plans to showcase the work of a serving First Lady, containing everything from her diary to life history. The content will change often, but in addition to offerings about Bruni-Sarkozy’s charitable side is a tribute to Jean Paul Gaultier, one of her favorite fashion designers.

Speaking of fashion, this is one of the topics Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is often associated with. The former model has embraced a Jacqueline Kennedy style of dress which includes a collection of French designers, mainly Christian Dior, and a timeless wardrobe that features smart suits, chic flats and pill box hats. Bruni-Sarkozy has even admitted that she is locked in a never-ending ‘beauty contest’ with other First Ladies around the world.

Referring to Michelle Obama and Princess Letizia of Spain as her chief rivals in the worlds fashion stage, Bruni-Sarkozy recalls a visit to Madrid in April, ‘which was once more an opportunity to compare the styles of First Ladies’. It continues: ‘As with Michelle Obama, it is a beauty contest between Princess Letizia, a former star journalist, and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, ex-top model. From their Louboutin shoes to their Azzedine Alaïa dresses, the essentials are all there.’

Referring to a fashion faceoff between Bruni-Sarkozy and Obama in northern France a couple of months later, the site reads: ‘On June 6, 2009, the two First Ladies met again for the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landings, both dressed in white.’

A posting about photographer Annie Leibovitz reads: ‘In 2008, the woman who has 142 Rolling Stone covers to her name unveiled Carla Bruni-Sarkozy on the front page of Vanity Fair: riding boots and jodhpurs in front of the Elysee Palace tapestries. “The New Jackie O?” asks the headline.’

Comparisons to former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy are constant with Bruni-Sarkozy always winning praise from fashion experts for her classic and timeless style.

A high-necked grey coat and matching hat which Carla wore during a state visit to Britain with her husband last year was remarkably similar to an ensemble previously worn by Kennedy. Carla has admitted that she is happy to be compared to John F Kennedy’s wife. ‘She was so young and modern,’ she told Vanity Fair magazine last year. ‘Unconsciously I would project myself more like Jackie Kennedy than for instance, Madame de Gaulle, who would be much more like the classical French woman behind her husband.’

Since assuming the role of first lady, the model and former gal pal of Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton has been the focus of international talk after nude pictures taken in 1993 by photographer Michel Comte when they went up for auction at Christie’s auction house in March 2008 – a move that infuriated the former supermodel. In September, another series of Bruni-Sarkozy nude photos, originally published in Italian Harper’s Bazaar, went on display in New York at the Art Photo Expo.

Shortly after its debut last month, an overwhelming number of visitors hit the site causing it to crash within minutes of launching.