Paris/Hollywood

A billet d'humeur originally commissioned by the iconic 7Hollywood, for their 10 Year Anniversary issue.

Bonjour à tous et à toutes,

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays have been quiet and peaceful.

I am extremely proud and honored to present a piece different than my usual on this first day of 2025. It was commissioned by my dear friend, the legendary photographer Alix Malka, for the 10th anniversary of his biannual art and fashion publication 7Hollywood.

The theme of this issue is, aptly, “Paris/Hollywood”, and Alix pushed me to reflect on the double life I live between the two cities. This sort of writing is not in my comfort zone, yet I found myself having a lot of fun with it; I may continue to edit and tweak it as I see fit. I also have to thank Liz Goldwyn for her help when writer’s block struck mere days before my deadline. If you are not already subscribed to her scandalous newsletter Starf*cker, you’re missing out!

You can read it in print — and the publication is really an art object worthy of your coffee table — by purchasing a copy at the link here. I believe it will appear in bookstores and on specialty newsstands in the coming months.

Cover stars include Céline Dion, Yseult, Pierre Niney, Isabelle Adjani and more icons of fashion and culture. I am truly humbled to say that my work appears in the same space as such titans; milles mercis, Alix!

Josephine Baker famously sang that she had her “Deux Amours”: her country and Paris. So do I.

The question I’m most often asked, regardless of where I am, is a simple one: where are you from? Vous venez d’ou?

As a born Angeleno, with a Belgian mother and Swiss upbringing, who splits her time between Paris and, yes, Hollywood, I usually respond, je suis Francophone de Los Angeles, mais non, pas Française.

But what does it mean to belong to both cities? Or… Neither?

In Los Angeles, athleisure is the uniform, prioritizing comfort and showing off beautifully tanned, hard bodies. Fluorescent pink Hailey Bieber smoothies from Erewhon are Angeleno’s equivalent to the Parisian cigarette: ubiquitous. Like the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence, to go without is to appear unfinished, out of place.

If you were to find me at Hollywood’s temple of overpriced, overly healthful food, I’d more than likely look like a ghost. I have always preferred to style myself in a darker, more elegant way; some call it goth. I simply think that black most flatters my pale skin. But you’d still be able to find me scrolling social media and laughing at internet humor like the rest of them. I’m not above it.

After being asked where I’m from, the next most common thing I hear is that I must belong elsewhere – if I’m in Hollywood, then surely I should be in Paris.

But Paris isn’t a perfect fit, either. While I’m more than happy to spend hours outside at a café with an 18th century novel – I’ve run afoul of plenty of natives who strike conversation with me, perhaps thinking I’m one of them… until I tap into the primal, ancient snobisme of the Parisians when I ask the most Los Angeles of questions: “What’s your sign?”

Many are uncomfortable when either they, or someone around them, can’t fit into a single, clean box. I, on the other hand, am content to suit myself to my surroundings, for it means that I can adapt. I can endure. Instead of belonging to nowhere, I can belong to whatever place I choose.

Los Angeles is a place uniquely suspended in its own reality; where everything is new, never aging, always beautiful, and never, ever rots. A place where time seems to stop under an ever-shining sun. Where the past is a foreign concept, as Hollywood is so new compared to every other major global city, and because a person can make whatever life for themself they choose as they pursue the California dream, their personal manifest destiny.

My favorite things about Paris and Hollywood are totally in opposition. Paris is all history, beauty in its art and architecture, made by famous people whose names are honored on the grands boulevards; Hollywood, an unfurled natural landscape, with open sky and a lack of history by which to measure oneself against – simply the present and future moment. Hollywood is all potential, but Paris is the yardstick by which you measure it.

I once had a profound, cinematic love affair which started in San Francisco, continued to Los Angeles, and ended in Paris. We spent nights driving down Sunset Boulevard, where I’d point out personal landmarks to him: my old apartment, the rock club on the Strip where I once worked. He found the stale, metallic smell at the gas stations alluring, while I’d press him not to light his cigarettes too close to the pumps. We'd embrace passionately in the shadow beneath the palm tree which grows in my garden.

My memories of it are all rather Proustian.

We broke up at Père Lachaise cemetery. At the time, it seemed like an obvious and almost dull mise-en-scène, down to the bird which shat on his coat.

It was all rather perfect. A balanced mélange of Paris and Hollywood. As we wove our way through throngs of the tourists and beatniks swarming Jim Morrison’s grave, wishing to pay tribute to another vibrant entity of the Sunset Strip, I couldn’t help but think about how beautiful this setting was; calibrated with a precise eye the way great, technicolor Hollywood mythmaking can be. The love laid to rest was passionate and aflame the way so many Parisian amours are.

I recently took for a lover an eccentric poet who preferred to sing his verses while playing the accordion. A man out of time, he easily passed for a member of the 1920s Montparnasse set. And yet – he refused to leave Los Angeles for too long, so attached was he to his home. He reminded me that to be Paris or Hollywood is in the spirit. Being around him also reminded me that I cannot root myself too deeply in either place, or else I may ossify.

What a glorious thing it is, to exist between Paris and Hollywood! Both places, dripping with creativity, freedom – sex – and love. Where you can create so much beauty for yourself and for others. Perhaps these are the reasons why, just as Josephine Baker – the ultimate Americaine to find herself celebrated in Paris – had her “deux amours”, I have mine.

Thank you for reading SACRED MONSTER! If you enjoyed this essay, please don’t hesitate to spread the word and encourage others to sign up.

If you’d like to get in touch with me with any questions or comments; or if there are subjects you’d like to see explored, don’t hesitate to send me a message. My email lines are open at bonjour@chloecassens.com.

À très bientôt,

Chloë Helen America Cassens