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>> Geneviève de Fontenay bows out on the stage of Miss Prestige national
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Geneviève de Fontenay at her home, October 27, 2020 in Saint-Cloud, near Paris.
Photo: AFP / VNA / CVN |
Her hats, old-fashioned style and outspokenness made her a French icon, known to many of the French.
At 88, the “lady in a hat “, between anger and spite, decided to boycott the centenary of beauty contests in France organized by TF1. Geneviève de Fontenay rejects the date of 1920 – that of the first competition of “the most beautiful woman in France ” – and retains that of 1928, when it was renamed “Miss France”.
Born August 30, 1932 in Longwy (Meurthe-et-Moselle) into a bourgeois family of ten children of which she is the eldest, Geneviève Mulmann was quickly noticed by her outfits, wearing from adolescence chic suits that she makes it herself. At the age of 20, she became a beauty product representative, in 1954 she met the president of the Miss France structure at the time, Louis Poirot, known as de Fontenay.
They have two sons, one of whom died at the age of 29, and a never-forgotten fashion tip: wear a Panama hat to balance your tall, recognizable figure.
Elected “Miss Elegance” 1957, Geneviève de Fontenay was a model for Balenciaga for a while. She will take over alone in 1981 the direction of the Miss France Committee, after the death of Louis de Fontenay.
Over the years, she has established herself as the guardian of the temple. “A Miss is the opposite of the carelessness, the scruffy, the vulgarity that distresses me so much, like these advertisements with pairs of buttocks and a string in it”.
Geneviève de Fontenay’s outspokenness, her paradoxical positions in social debates and her changes of political course (from Arlette Laguiller to Ségolène Royal via Florian Philippot) have forged her popularity, maintained by a tasty gap between his banter and his look of a deceptively stuck aristocrat. She admits only one regret: not having tried a political career.
“Ethical conflict”
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Geneviève de Fontenay (1re right) during a Miss France contest.
Photo: AFP / VNA / CVN |
Geneviève de Fontenay considers herself the “mother” of all his misses. Perhaps the reason why she takes everything very badly “wandering” of its “girls”, in particular that of Isabelle Turpeaut, Miss France 1983, the first dismissed for charming photos in Paris Match.
In 2002, Endemol, a European reality TV giant, bought the Société Miss France for just over 6 million euros, and offered TF1 exclusive broadcasting rights. Quickly, the “lady in a hat “ and Endemol enter “in ethical conflict”, according to her, on the organization of the competition and the ceremony.
Two years later, the “Miss des Miss” celebrates its 50e beauty queen. She expresses her emotion, on the eve of a jubilee “which crowns an extraordinary adventure marked by the formidable support of the French “.
A few years later, Endemol transforms into “celebrity” a miss dismissed for erotic pictures. Angry, Geneviève de Fontenay slams the door and decides to create a very brief dissident contest, Miss National Prestige, starting a legal war with Endemol. In 2013, legal proceedings were dropped on both sides, as part of a non-aggression pact.
Since 2004, Geneviève de Fontenay’s wax double has been featured in the Grévin museum. “It’s an idea that amuses me to find myself at the museum, she then comments. I was offered the Legion of Honor. I refused because I certainly don’t deserve it! We must respect this medal on behalf of all those who saved France “.
After having reigned for more than 60 years on beauty contests, Geneviève de Fontenay announced in 2015 “turn the page of Miss”, not feeling “more in line with what seems to be working today”.
AFP / VNA / CVN
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