Two of the seven beauty queens in these photographs are majorettes. Charles Fréger met them in the north of France while he was doing his Majorettes series and they told him about the beauty contest that was going on in a small coastal town near where they lived.
The photography here is front-on, as it is with Pattes blanches, Liteau, Water-Polo and Majorettes. But unlike those other contemporary series, these photographs are all full-length. The uniform this time is the black swimming costumes, the make-up and the hair-dos – all very similar but, when you look closely, all different. Standing there in front of the terracotta tiles of the village hall, they each hold a number for the camera to see. Although the style is close to that of the other series he made during this period, the way the subjects are lit is unusually harsh. This strange coldness, which the photographer has intentionally allowed to creep into the image, corresponds to the cold, critical gaze of the beauty contest in which these young women have become captives.
