Jacquemus has returned to Monte-Carlo Beach, and with it comes that very specific summer feeling of wanting to own a straw bag, drink something pale and expensive, and behave as though one has never once answered an email in a panic.
For a second consecutive season, the French fashion house has brought its sun-drenched world to the iconic Monaco beach club, this year with a redesigned concept inspired by the glamour of 1950s Mediterranean summers. Think striped parasols, clean lines, nostalgic Riviera charm and the sort of effortless chic that, in reality, takes a small army, excellent lighting and someone called Sabine whispering, “Non, not that towel.”
This season, the mood has shifted into a cooler, softer palette, with mint blue, coconut white and touches of black replacing last year’s louder yellow glow. The result is elegant, fresh and so perfectly styled it makes the average beach towel look like it has given up on life.
Jacquemus’ signature stripes appear across parasols, sunbeds, towels and even the jetty, which now looks less like a place to step into the sea and more like somewhere one might dramatically end a situationship while wearing sunglasses indoors.
Monte-Carlo Beach has always been more than a beach club. It is a mood. A place where old-world elegance meets modern spectacle, where the sea looks painted and even the sun loungers appear to have inherited property.
Opened in the late 1920s, Monte-Carlo Beach arrived at a moment when the Riviera was learning how to tan. Sunbathing was becoming glamorous, bronzed skin was becoming fashionable, and the South of France was quietly turning leisure into an art form. Before long, the beach was no longer just somewhere one went to swim. It became somewhere one went to be seen pretending not to want to be seen.
Naturally, Monaco understood this immediately.
Set just beyond the Principality in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Monte-Carlo Beach became one of the great symbols of Riviera elegance: sea, sport, society and the kind of lunch that somehow requires both jewellery and an emotional recovery period. Over the decades, it has welcomed royalty, artists, socialites and those rare individuals who can wear linen without looking as though they have slept in a bakery bag.
This is why the Jacquemus collaboration works so well. Simon Porte Jacquemus does not simply design clothes. He designs an entire weather system. His world is made of Provençal sunlight, bare shoulders, ripe fruit, tiny bags, enormous hats and the quiet suggestion that life would be vastly improved if everyone walked more slowly past swimming pools.
There is humour in it too, which is why it never feels cold. Jacquemus understands beauty, but he also understands the absurdity of beauty. The tiny handbag. The giant hat. The model striding through lavender fields as if late for a very chic harvest. It is glamorous, yes, but with a wink. Monaco, a place where even a lift can feel underdressed, appreciates this sort of thing.
This collaboration is not just about fashion. It is about atmosphere. It is about reviving the golden age of the Riviera without making it feel like everyone has been forced into costume by an enthusiastic aunt with a Pinterest board. It is nostalgia, but polished. Luxury, but sun-warmed. Glamour, but with better humour and fewer pearls being clutched.
The beach club has been dressed in Jacquemus’ Mediterranean language, but it still feels like Monte-Carlo Beach. That is the clever part. The brand has not simply arrived, scattered a few logos around and called it a lifestyle. It has leaned into the place itself: the history, the sea, the architecture, the old Riviera fantasy of being impossibly relaxed while everything around you is arranged with military precision.
And then, of course, there is the boutique. Because after reclining beneath a parasol that appears to have bone structure, one may naturally feel the urge to purchase a towel, a T-shirt or a bag, in the hope that some of the glamour might follow one home and improve the lighting in the kitchen.
It probably won’t. But hope is important.
In a world where fashion can often take itself so seriously it risks fainting, Jacquemus remains refreshingly human. Beautiful, yes. Impossibly stylish, certainly. But also warm, witty and sunlit.
Very Monaco, really.
Just with softer edges, better beachwear and a parasol that knows its angles.
