LES COCOTTES REINES DU PARIS 1900

Crowned queens of the Belle Époque Caroline Otero, Liane de Pougy, Cléo de Mérode, Émilienne d’Alençon, Mata Hari and other forgotten ones, make a big entrance in the world of gallantry. These “cocottes” make men, preferably royal, run after them. Beautiful, manipulators, venal, cruel when needed, they are quick to spend the fortune given to them… And forget their lovers as soon as they are ruined.
In Paris, capital of pleasures, the “big horizontals” are also stars of the music-hall. They have fun, seduce, make the news, and are in the tabloids, to the point where they impose their style and taste in Europe, and as far as America.
With a rich, and most of the time exclusive, iconography (photos, frames, posters), Catherine Guignon makes a live portrait of these free spirit adventurous ladies, craving for life and using their charm to get diamonds.