“Nobody is ever gonna listen to this.” – me, July 2016

Welcome back to The Land of Desire, a French history podcast dedicated to exploring all the weird adventures, mysteries and surprising backstories behind French cultural icons. This week, I’m offering a BONUS episode to celebrate…10,000 DOWNLOADS! Considering I only launched this podcast 8 weeks ago, I’m absolutely boggled at the response it’s received, and I’m so thankful to each and every one of you! To show my thanks, here’s a little themed episode about the number 10,000…

Bonus: “10,000!”

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Obviously this milestone is thanks to the folks at the iTunes Music Store, who have been featuring The Land of Desire on their front page since last week! I’m blown away by all you new listeners, and I’m eager to hear your feedback and suggestions for the show. 🙂 In the future, I hope to write a comprehensive post talking about how this has affected my listener numbers, since a lot of other podcast producers are curious about things like that.

Transcript

Surprise! Bienvenue and welcome to a bonus episode of The Land of Desire. If you’re looking at your calendar and scratching your head, no, you’re not wrong – the next episode is due a week from now. However, this week we crossed a crazy milestone and I wanted to show my appreciation to all of you! Eight weeks ago, I was just a crazy person sitting in my closet with a microphone, trying to figure out how to produce a podcast. This week, we hit ten thousand downloads. In fact, we flew past 10,000 and we’re well on our way to hit 20,000 by the end of the week! It’s clear that I wasn’t the only person out there jonesing to learn more about French history, so if you’d like to meet like-minded folks, head on over to our Facebook page and say hi! So with said, here’s a little 10,000-themed episode for you.

A few months ago, François Hollande, President of France, was outed in a delicious scandal. It turns out, the President was spending 10,000 euros of taxpayer money on his hairdress, every single month. For those of you who haven’t seen a picture of François Hollande, the best part of this story is that the man only has about 10 euros worth of hair left. The man isn’t Fabio – by the way, America, Fabio just became a citizen and I would consider my tax dollars well spent, I’m just sayin’ – and Hollande tends to wear his hair combed back, simple, straightforward, your classic boring politician hair. So why does it cost 10,000 euros a month? Well, among other reasons, this hairdresser is on retainer – heaven forbid there’s an emergency at 3 AM and the president has to appear on television with split ends! No, Olivier B. lives nearby and travels with the President on all his international trips to make sure he’s camera-ready at all times. Here’s the thing about the president’s set-up: you might say it’s outlandish, you might say it’s even outrageous, but you cannot say it’s not French.

The French invented the celebrity hairstylist in the 1660s, when a certain Monsieur Champagne made his debut in Paris. Before him, women did their hair at home, with the help of a ladies’ made, and most of their hard work was covered up by fabric for modesty’s sake. Monsieur Champagne tossed convention out the window, using fabric not for modesty but for volume, piling the hair layer on layer into extravagant masterpieces, decorated with lace, hair extensions, and who knows what else. His skills were in such demand that he opened a salon, actually convincing women to leave their homes and have their hair done in public. Fashionable ladies couldn’t get enough, and by the time the Princess Marie de Gonzague prepared to leave for her wedding to the king of Poland, she demanded that Monsieur Champagne come along with the wedding party, to make sure her new crown wouldn’t ruin his handiwork. Unlike Françoise Hollande’s hair stylist, Monsieur Champagne accepted no money – how vulgar! Instead, women were expected to present him with elaborate gifts, and heaven help you if he felt your gifts weren’t up to snuff!

100 years later, it was Monsieur Léonard’s time to shine. Whereas Monsieur Champagne’s clients were a bit unsure about the idea of a man touching their heads, by the 1790s the Queen Marie Antoinette herself kept a hairdresser on retainer. Léonard was called in for the most magnificent events, while his younger brother styled the queen’s hair for the day-to-day. The hairstyles of the day included flowers, jewels, feathers, butterflies, and elaborate shapes so tall that doorways began to look intimidating. It’s no surprise that women began turning to wigs instead – it’s easier to sculpt hair that sits still, and the whole contraption can be lifted off at the end of the night – no small relief when they could weigh up to thirty pounds! When riding in a carriage, some women would have to kneel on the floor to fit the top of their hair inside, or lean over and stick their precious works of art out the window! Here’s one example worn by a duchess in April 1774: 14 yards of gauze and feathers stuck on top of a tower of hair, festooned with little wax figurines meant to resemble the duchess’s son and nursemaid, sitting next to a wax parrot, eating from a wax plate of cherries, eating next to a wax figurine of, and I quote here, “a little African boy of whom the duchess was very fond.” I swear to God, at least one woman is thought to have put a crematory urn in her hair. Everything must come to an end, of course. When Marie Antoinette’s life ended on the guillotine, her head was held up to the crowd by, of course, her very famous hair.

So, all things considered, perhaps we should go a little easier on François. Sure, it’s a waste of taxpayer money, but maybe we should write it off as a national tradition? Compared to the ribbons, lace, and wax parrots of previous leaders, perhaps we should be grateful that the President has exhibited such restraint. Then again, perhaps he wouldn’t go wrong with a butterfly or two….

Thanks for listening to The Land of Desire. If you’re just discovering this show this week, don’t forget to check out the website at www.thelandofdesire.com where you can find previous episodes, show notes, recommended reading and lots of pictures. Join me next week for our regularly scheduled episode and thank you again for listening! The Land of Desire is written, researched and produced by me, Diana Stegall, the girl sitting in the closet eight weeks ago. Thanks again and au revoir!

Further Reading:

Marie Antoinette’s Head: The Royal Hairdresser, The Queen, And The Revolution (Will Bashor, 2013)

Other hairstyle examples of the times!

Go watch Marie Antoinette if, for some unfathomable reason, you haven’t done so already. It’s beautiful and dreamy, it has a terrific soundtrack, but it ALSO has a great montage of ever-ridiculous hairstyle creation. One of its more successful attempts at image-rehabilitation comes during her makeover scene, when she joins in the Rousseau-inspired trend towards natural expressions and sentiments by debuting a shockingly relaxed style of dress and hair. To modern eyes, her look is still pretty fancy, but compared to the powdered, feathered, bejeweled Marge Simpson towers of the past, it was a pretty radical break.

Sources:

The Essence of Style (Joan DeJean, 2006)

“A Haircut for French Taxpayers? Hollande’s $10,000-a-Month Stylist Is Revealed” (New York Times, July 2016)

“Balding French President Hollande Spends $132,000 On His Hair Each Year” (Vanity Fair, July 2016)