A few days ago we went on a family picnic to a lake close to our home in the south of France. After a rather pleasant lunch of saucisson, baguette and brie washed down with rosé wine, my husband and I left the children to play while we took a stroll around the lake. At one point we came across a woman lying flat on her back wearing nothing but black bikini bottoms and a pink towel covering her head. Even without seeing her face you could tell she was of a certain age. We immediately stopped chatting and tiptoed past her. In part, we didn’t want to wake her up, but there was also the feeling that we were intruding on something private, almost something we shouldn’t be seeing. It struck me then how rare it is to see a pair of boobs on display in France, at least from a woman below the age of 50.
The magazine French Elle, know as ‘the bible’ here, ran an article last month heralding La Fin Du Topless Sur La Plage? – Is this the end of topless bathing on the beach? The magazine concluded that yes it is, and that only two per cent of women under the age of 35 now sunbathe topless.
When we first moved to the south of France in 2000 there was still quite a lot of topless sunbathing on the beaches but nowadays, letting it all hang out is no longer de rigueur. Why is this?
In the sixties, Brigitte Bardot led the way in St Tropez. It was the sexual revolution and French women’s breasts were at the forefront. Bardot topless on the beach was synonymous with equality. Wearing a monokini was a sign of liberation, freedom of choice and youth. Now it has become the opposite.
“For a French woman today, not showing her breasts is a sign of liberation,” says Chantal, a 28-year old accountant I meet on the beach at Espiguette Plage, close to Montpellier in the South of France. “The fact that we can cover up, that we don’t need to display everything shows we are in charge of our own bodies, that we decide who sees what, and when they see it.”
This sentiment is echoed by her friend Justine, a 30-year old bank clerk, who adds that the shift in attitude has in part been brought about by the proliferation of porn on the Internet. Breasts on the beach are no longer the innocent manifestation of a social and sexual revolution; they have been somehow tarnished by the porn industry. If you expose your breasts, you are cheap. Or rather nudity has become cheap, at least in public.
“It is women who are forced to work in this disgusting industry who have to show their breasts. Educated career women do not,” she says. “The female body has been stolen by the porn industry, which uses it as it pleases. By covering up we are saying that we will not be part of this debasing of women. We are making a stand.”
Needless to say both Chantal and Justine are wearing bikini bottoms and tops. I ask them where they bought them from. Monoprix says Chantal, Eres says Justine. As with a lot of things in France, fashion plays a big part. Eres is an exclusive French swimwear and lingerie house that claims its products are “body architecture”. And it’s tough to have much influence on a body with just a pair of skimpy bikini bottoms. I am sure there is an element of fashion behind French women’s reluctance to get display their boobs. As Julie, a 32-year old French friend of mine who lives in Montpellier says: “Going topless would seem very 1970s, rather like having hairy armpits and wearing flares.”
The trend to cover up seems to have affected more than just the nation’s beaches. Ségolène Royal, former presidential candidate and now Minister for Ecology, recently tried to force women to cover up in her government ministry by declaring a ban on the famous French décolleté, or low neckline. Her argument was that they were to work not to show off their assets. She didn’t succeed, because even if a French woman doesn’t want to show her boobs, no one has the right to take away her liberty to do so. Royal was forced to make a public retraction on twitter.
How much the covering up on the beach is influenced by the fashion houses wanting to sell two bits of material for vast amounts of dosh as opposed to one is hard to say, but the union-style mentality is still extremely obvious in France. When Bardot got her boobs out in the Sixties a whole nation of women followed. Now a whole nation of women have put their boobs back in. During my day on the beach, the only French women I saw sunbathing topless looked like they’d been there during the sexual revolution. The others were German and heavily tattooed. And there is nothing seductive about them at all.
“Sunbathing topless makes you look old and unfashionable,” says Manon, a 34-year old graphic designer from Montpellier. “It’s the sort of thing my mother did. I never have. It makes you look old and at the same time it’s very ageing. The skin on your breasts is very delicate and sun exposure is not good for it.”
Health is one of the biggest factors driving French women to cover up. For a nation of Gauloise-smoking, coffee drinking rebels this too is a new trend. “It has become very retro to sunbathe, topless or not,” says Claire, a 38-year-old French friend of mine who lives in the Aquitaine region of France. “Everyone now knows the damage the sun does to your skin. I wear sun screen every day, even in the winter, and most of my friends do too. There is nothing more ageing than all that crinkly skin on your décolleté.”
Despite their reputation for smoking and drinking coffee, you only have to walk into a French pharmacy to see how seriously French women take their health and the effect it has on their looks. Almost three-quarters of the shelves are stocked with lotions and potions for slimmer legs, firmer buttocks and clear skin, magical cures that may or may not work but certainly sell well. If there is one thing they know about, it’s how to make the best of themselves; and it seems they have come to the conclusion that being almost naked in public is not a good look. As Claire says: “It is quite rare to see any under forties here sunbathing topless unless they are German, Dutch or ‘daring’ British. Elegant French women tend to be quite understated fashion-wise and we think pretty and strategically-placed fabric is far more alluring than flabby flesh. I have never sunbathe topless in public mainly for this reason, but also because of the damage the sun does.”
French women are programmed to seduce, and French women find undressing for a lover (or being undressed) much more seductive than showing up naked. Why take away all the mystery and allure? In this instance less is not more. It’s all about the joy of slowly opening the package, peeling back the layers to discover the prize within. “No man will be bothered to seduce you if you give him everything on a plate, they want to have the fun of the game, even if they know you’re a sure thing,” says Julie. “My husband still enjoys removing my underwear, even after ten years of marriage and two children. And I love playing the game with him, it keeps our marriage alive. ”
Clothes are there to make men think about removing them, to make them imagine what lies beneath and the promise of untold pleasures and beauty if they could just get there. As the author of the French classic book Bonjour Tristesse Françoise Sagan said: “A dress makes no sense unless it inspires a man to take it off you.”
As I leave Espiguette Plage I spot an attractive blonde woman sunbathing topless. I see she is reading a book in French. Have I found the only remaining French topless sunbather under 50? No, she tells me, she’s Swiss.