In December, Britain has pantomimes and France has silly beauty controversies. The latest one, which erupted on social networks last weekend, must be one of the most bizarre witnessed since the beginning of the Miss France pageant, 103 years ago.
Twenty-year-old Eve Gilles, the former Miss Pas-de-Calais, was crowned Miss France last Saturday. But it wasn’t just her win that dominated headlines but her short hair. Choquant, non? Critics vented their fury online that a lithe, androgynous-looking woman could take the crown as, ostensibly, France’s most beautiful woman. Some denounced it as an example of diversity gone too far. Some talked about the victory of wokery. Pardon?
The furore was sparked in part by the fact that judges overrode the public vote which accounted for 50% of the decision. The public’s first choices were the long-haired Miss French Guiana and Miss Guadeloupe. What this risible storm in a teacup shows is the amnesia and shortsightedness of some of my compatriots. French femininity has always been incredibly varied. Beauty à la française has long been an ode to diversity, a potpourri of origins, a mélange of looks, measurements, curves and haircuts. Just as importantly, French beauty has never only been a question of looks, but also of spirit, hence its universal appeal.
Every age, every period in history displays its own taste – this is what we call fashion. But there have always been women who have transcended à la mode conformism. During the Belle Epoque, there was Colette: a submissive wife turned rebellious writer, who circumvented gender roles and as an actor performed in the nude. She was small, curvy, and athletic; she rolled her “r” like they did in her native Burgundy, and her frizzy hair cascaded on her shoulders until she cut it short. At a time when French women still wore corsets, she threw hers in the bin. She wore trousers, then forbidden by law for a woman, so she could exercise, something that was simply not done. All her life, she drove men and women crazy, and was the only French woman of letters to be given a state funeral.
In the 1920s, France adopted Josephine Baker with enthusiasm. An African American who astutely played on stereotypes, Baker brought the cakewalk to Paris, charmed the French with her short hair and athletic body, her sense of fun and her wit, not to mention her Résistance activities during the second world war.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the tall, flat-chested, short-haired and androgynous Arletty was France’s biggest film star. Remember the film Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise)? Arletty was 45 and still every male character in this film, written by Jacques Prévert, is rightly entranced by her beauty, repartee and mystery.
The 1950s gave us Leslie Caron and Juliette Gréco, the former who mesmerises Gene Kelly in An American in Paris, the latter the deep-voiced chanteuse whose songs were written by Jean-Paul Sartre, among other philosophers.
The 1960s gave us the ice queen Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot, the blonde bombshell who turned heads for her physique and the way she led her life – carefree, far away from bourgeois conventions. Deneuve was the reserved classic beauty while Bardot was the wild one, always speaking her mind at the risk of alienating people. Both, however, ripped up the rulebook for how women were supposed to behave. Deneuve had a child with a married man, Marcello Mastroianni, and joined many feminist protests. Bardot left her son to be brought up mostly by his father. But the 1960s also gave us Françoise Hardy and Jane Birkin, two tall and androgynous beauties, who cut their hair short whenever they fancied. As a nation, we couldn’t get enough of them, and the outpouring of affection after Birkin’s death this summer is a testimony of her never-ending place in the country’s imagination.
I could go on and on about the contrasting expressions of French femininity over the years. The most important thing, however, is that French beauty would be nothing without a certain spirit. Americans call it pizzazz. In France, it is a combination of defiance, sophistication, confidence and impudence.
Eve Gilles’ win at this year’s Miss France is cause for celebration – it is a continuation of a longstanding French tradition of championing unique beauty and saying merde to conventions. Vive la différence!
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Agnès Poirier is a political commentator, writer and critic
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