Back in the 80s voluptuous valkyries lined Rue St. Denis to sell their bodies for sex. Their wardrobe favored tight leather sheaths and plastic dominatrix outfits. Most of the whores on the old Roman road were not young, few were beautiful, however their faithful clientele sought satisfaction in droves. After work at the Bains-Douches I walked the darknarrow street as a voyeur. The women under the streetlights recognized me from the nearby nightclub and called out, “Amerlot, let me make you happy.”
I contemplated sex on the serpentine Passage Lemoine without ever succumbing to the temptation from these ‘putes’, yet those over-sized leather queens lingered in distant lanes within my memory and this week stylist Sascha Lilac’s posting of the fashion doyenne’s Zana Bayne’s provocation pret-a-porter show in Paris reincarnated my old fantasies.
Easy to see why.
Ah, les putes des Rue St. Denis.
Gone but not forgotten.
painting by anne howeson