Rue Meslay

3e

The humorous reflections of poet Robert Desnos on wandering this street are indicative of the ways in which he and his fellow surrealists (all males) idolized women, particularly women whose seeming non-attainability made them more mysterious and therefore, more desirable.

“No wax museum can compete with these quasi-living statues . . . In certain windows for lingerie shops, half-naked women contemplate, with the shamelessness of pure souls, preoccupied passersby. On the new Haussmann-style boulevard, this is a wonder. Naked, but surrounded like a mummy in is bandages, but a multitude of mirrors, barely covered in a silk scarf, a mannequin turns her barely-sketched face.”

République, Strasbourg Saint-Denis