He was from Béarn, yet his name will forever resonate along the avenues of Paris and on the world’s red carpets. Jean Barthet, a genius milliner, shaped hats the way others write poems: letting audacity and grace dance together on a single thread.

I remember those dinners in his apartment in the 16ᵗʰ arrondissement, after a day spent at the factory of his perfumes. The table would glow with laughter, raised glasses, and anecdotes in which the stars of cinema and couture seemed almost familiar. Barthet had that rare gift: turning the ordinary into a celebration, and everyday life into legend.

Grace Kelly, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Lauren Bacall, Catherine Deneuve, Michael Jackson… all, at one time, were crowned by his imagination. His hats were not mere accessories: they were fragments of light, shards of dream, signatures of style.

Today, in Nay, at the Maison Carrée, his brilliance is being celebrated for the first time. The exhibition, designed by his son Alexandre, unfolds more than forty years of creation: hats, photographs, sketches, films, memories. A universe where glamour meets craftsmanship, where one understands that elegance is an architecture of the soul.

From the shadows of his workshop to the spotlights of the runways, Barthet crossed his era like a meteor, leaving behind a trail of silk, felt, and velvet. And if his name still surfaces in Annie Leibovitz’s eye or on the silhouette of a Lady Gaga, it is because some forms of genius never die: they endure in the memory of shapes and dreams.

Jean Barthet, flamboyant son of Béarn, prince of headwear, master of gesture and refinement… One does not simply wear his hats; one takes shelter in them, for a moment, from the banality of the world.

FM

LE PRINCE DES CHAPEAUX EXPOSITION DU 21 JUIN AU 11 OCTOBRE 2025 Maison Carrée de Nay – Béarn –
Pyrénées Atlantiques