Saint-Tropez was looking its best, stripped of the giant yachts that have curiosity value but clutter the beautiful harbour. There was a sailing event - why am I not surprised Rolex was involved? - and smaller, more elegant craft were berthed where the monsters usually puff out their opulent chests.
The rip-off petrol station entering town was still charging €1.48 a litre for diesel, 26 centimes more than seen just a few kilometres away, but tourists wore happy faces. But in the charming cobbled streets behind the port, there was the hint of discord.
Sasha, a well-known St Trop artist, has a gallery in the rue des Remparts. Much of what is for sale inside relates to Brigitte Bardot, described at Wikipedia as "the icon of Saint-Tropez" and Mme Bardot is not best pleased.
Var-Matin quotes her husband, Bernard d'Ormale, as harrumphing for all he's worth: "We're used to seeing representations of BB everywhere but this is too much. In the boutique, there are candles, watches, flip flops, plates, all sorts of things. Soon they'll be making cars with the name BB."
Sasha protests that the images on the various items are drawn from his own paintings of Bardot. He claims credit for the idea of associating images of the former actress with the port, where he began painting at a harbourside easel 13 years ago.
He has tried repeatedly to discuss sharing the proceeds of sales with Bardo's animal welfare foundation. The present Monsieur BB insists there's no question of agreeing to any such association with commercial interests and talks gravely of his wife's image being exploited.
I am instinctively on Sasha's side. I also have sneaking sympathy for Bardot, who once complained to the mayor that her privacy was invaded by land, sea and air taking account of the ramblers whose route took them past her home, the "celebrity villa" cruises whose guides bawl out her life story in numerous languages and the nuisance of helicopters ferrying moneyed visitors to and from the grand villas.
Leaving aside her distressing support for France's extrême droite, Bardot has a right to insist being respected for her activism on behalf of animals, not for how she looked when young.
Against that, her foundation would be largely ignored but for her name and the images that name evokes. And it is hardly as if other shops and artists do not also offer objects bearing or strongly suggesting her youthful beauty. Her 1956 film And God Created Woman was heavily responsible for the public's attraction to the port; Woman, it might even be said, Created Saint-Tropez.
M d'Ormale talks of sending in bailiffs. Var-Matin sees every chance the affair will end up in court. And meanwhile, in what I see as a delicious contradiction if we are really talking about the freedom of expression and action, the sign passers-by see on the door of Sasha's gallery is none other that a warning that photographs must not be taken.
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