As a public figure, Hardy is renowned for her shyness and reservedness, and observers have emphasized her "anti-social nature as a celebrity". She has been open in her autobiography and in interviews about her struggles with anxiety, self-doubt, loneliness and inferiority complex.Hardy, 2018 [2008], "Eight" Uncuts Tom Pinnock noted that "it was her refusal to play the showbusiness game that made her something of an icon." The singer's sudden celebrity status was a source of great discomfort for her, as she claimed in 2011: "I didn't enjoy at all everything, the trappings, when all of a sudden you become very famous. (...) [Being taken up by fashion houses] was work, things I had to do, a chore—I didn't enjoy it at all... It is quite impossible to stand—to be admired too much—it is not a normal situation. I don't like that at all. I am not comfortable with my professional life really, so the word 'icon'—it's as though you were talking about someone else, it's not me really." She regularly suffered from stage fright, which led to her stopping performing live altogether in 1968. Her public image and style during the 1960s made an impact on international pop culture, something that overshadowed her skills as a singer outside of France.Quinonero, 2017, "«Son allure de page travesti»" As Hardy's almost exclusive photographer and agent during the decade, Jean-Marie Périer became a Pygmalion-like figure for her,Deluxe, 2013. p. 29 transforming the singer's public image from "a shy, gauche-looking schoolgirl" into a "modern young trend-setter." She wrote: "...[Périer] tried to open my mind and help me in all domains with his characteristic generosity. For example, he taught me to love the cinema by bringing me to see great films, and under his tutelage I realized the importance of aesthetics, which became one of my major criteria. He taught me how to carry myself and to dress, and gave me advice on social skills". He persuaded the singer to begin modelling and she soon became "a star of the international fashion world as well as the French music scene." She was also notably photographed by Gered Mankowitz, William Klein and Richard Avedon for Vogue and other publications. Her regular appearance on magazine covers gave her the reputation of being the quintessential French cover girl of the 1960s. In 1967, teen magazine Special Pop wrote: "Françoise manages to attract both kids and their parents, men and women alike. More than a singer, she's becoming a universal myth with whom thousands of young girls dream of identifying." Nevertheless, she was disenchanted with the lifestyle of the jet-set and high society, and in the 1970s abandoned the image of "fashionable young girl about town" that Périer had created for her.
