Cannes in Photos

When I think of Cannes, I see Jane Birkin with her stringy hair and short bangs holding a straw basket, her knee popped and facing outward. Her hip bone is protruding from her white flare jeans which are low rise and when paired with her cropped crochet t-shirt they display her entire stomach. She’s leaning against a wooden column next to Serge Gainsbourg and the dramatic scenery behind them boasts a mystical, breathtaking view of clear, gentle waters that seem to encapsulate an out-of-this-world shade of blue despite the minor detail that the photo is black and white.

If there is in fact any glamour left on the earth we — not Gainsbourg — now occupy, it is no doubt confined to pockets along the French Riviera. This is an argument that has long held true and maybe that’s in part because of the film festival that opens the summer season. Where else, after all, could the premiere of a film (not movie) demand that men show up not just in black tie but tuxedo, for the love of Armani! And this debacle on flats, you’ve read about it, right? At the Cannes Film Festival, still in progress right now, women are being turned away from the Red Carpet — the last remaining true red carpet – because of their lackluster footwear, displaying neither a heel nor the delicate female arch that it creates.

I had enumerable ideas of what Cannes during film festival season might be like. Gowns worn midday. Beach-side lunches where the rosé flows like jelly-fish in the Mediterranean. Sun umbrellas. And frankly, I wasn’t wrong. But there is something rather sad about the commercialization of the new world’s last standing old-world-destination.

Last week was the first time I had been to Cannes during the film festival. I was there as a guest of Chopard, the festival’s official sponsor, and when I arrived, I was astounded by the time-honored hotels covered in big-ticket movie banners. There were barricades containing fans as if sardines in a can. You could barely walk along the Croisette, Cannes’ main strip, without being stopped by the exhaustive foot traffic — suede loafers upon espadrilles upon luxury shopping bags and so forth. I’ve only been to Vegas once but once is enough to know that when you’re striking a semblance between the French Riviera and the anterior’s larger-than-life strip, glamour is hugely relative.

Maybe that’s not fair either. In Cannes, the women are better dressed, the jewelry is decidedly more dramatic (often requiring its own bodyguard), and the food isn’t genetically modified. The charisma tethered to walking down a red carpet and up covered stairs, into an enormous amphitheater full of lauded talent to see the movies that will instruct the following year in entertainment and to acknowledge that this formula worked and worked well for the past 68 years is worth something, right?

But I’m still curious about this notion of glamour. Was it swept away in the high tide of the film festival’s modern commercialism, or was it me? Did I suck the glamour out all on my own?

In partnership with Chopard. Curious about the last time Leandra had (a) deep thought about travel? Check out her Tokyo Diary.