The Myth of Saint-Tropez

Chanel head designer and creative director, Karl Lagerfeld, is one of the celebrities that adds allure to the Saint-Tropez brand. © Feymedia

Maniscalco goes on to describe the burden placed on the residents. In the director's opinion it is more than fair that, in return for opening their doors to tourists, they earn more and see the value of their real estate increase. They have to cough up for rubbish disposal, street cleaning and even for the streets themselves. As a result of living in some people's idea of paradise, they have to cope with high expenses – and that is because they have to finance the dream that the visitors are looking for when they come here. However, on the other hand, prices must remain affordable since the rich and famous wouldn't have an audience without the common folk around to watch them.

The image of a glam lifestyle
"Over the years, Saint-Tropez has become a brand famous around the world", Maniscalco continues. "It is the embodiment of a certain attitude to life. Nowadays, when consumers spend a lot of money on beautiful things, they want their shopping bags to carry the logos: New York, Beverly Hills and Saint-Tropez, and also maybe Marbella and Dubai." And that is the case even if they have never been to these places before. "Shop owners want Saint-Tropez splashed all over their bags because the name stands for a certain lifestyle world over, a special mix of extravagance and laissez-faire. Our image becomes their image, and that is perfect advertising for us as well as for them."
Hervé le Fauconnier used to be the port captain and thus reigned over 800 berths, of which 700 are constantly busy. The port, with its high fees, makes up the most important part of the municipal’s economy. Between 7,000 and 8,000 ships and yachts dock here each year. And the demand is much higher: during the summer around 23,000 booking requests are received.

"But no one ever planned to let Saint-Tropez evolve into a myth", journalist and author Sobik says. "Everything that accounts for the town's charm today is being promoted with pricey marketing campaigns, but the myth itself is not the work of publicity strategists, gastronomes, hoteliers and real estate agents. It happened to evolve like this by chance. Only after did the marketing arrive."

The arrival of celebrity
One of the first celebrities was Picasso who discovered the place; Brigitte Bardot, Romy Schneider and Jack Nicholson followed. The town became more and more famous, especially because of the movies made by Louis de Funès. Their plots were set in and around Saint-Tropez and the beautiful scenery helped to bring in more than 10 million viewers to the cinema.

For decades the shoemaking family Rondini has been producing the ‘sandales tropéziennes’, which gained fame thanks to stars like Bardot and are still being locally manufactured by hand, one by one. Henri Sié's expressionist Saint-Tropez paintings are hanging in many houses and yachts in the town. The artist refuses to reveal who his clients are.

The owner of the club Les Caves du Roy, Jack E., is more forthcoming: P. Diddy, Paris Hilton, Bruce Willis and George Clooney are just some of his regular guests. On the menu is a nine-litre bottle of champagne, a mere snip at 100,000 euros.

Yet there are two further figures that are even more striking and which indicate the world’s ongoing fasci-nation with the ancient fishing village: 245,000 parking tickets were distributed in Les Lices last year and 1.1 million at the car park on the port. Now that’s what you call traffic.          

RL/RN  

Mythos Saint-Tropez, text by Helge Sobik (Feymediaverlag, Duesseldorf, 2011)