What Makes Biarritz Elegance So Different?
Atlantic waves, old glamour and the freedom of the sea
There are places where elegance feels carefully preserved.
Biarritz is not quite one of them.
Here, grand façades face the Atlantic. Surfboards pass old hotels. Hair is moved by the ocean wind, shoes are sometimes left in the sand, and something beautiful can be worn without feeling too precious.
Perhaps that is what makes Biarritz so captivating.
It has elegance, but it also has freedom.
From Empress Eugénie to the Atlantic
Long before Biarritz became known for its surfers, it had another kind of glamour.
Empress Eugénie had known Biarritz since childhood. After her marriage to Napoleon III, the Emperor fell for the small seaside town too and had a summer residence built for her beside the Atlantic in the 1850s.
It became known as Villa Eugénie.
The imperial couple returned summer after summer, followed by European royalty and aristocracy. The quiet fishing town gradually became one of the most fashionable seaside destinations of its time.
Villa Eugénie would later become the Hôtel du Palais, still facing the Atlantic today.
But the story of Biarritz did not end with its golden age.
Then came the surfboards
Almost a century later, a very different kind of style arrived on the same coast.
In the 1950s, while The Sun Also Rises, based on Hemingway’s novel, was being filmed on the Basque coast, American screenwriter Peter Viertel discovered the waves of Biarritz.
By 1957, surfboards were appearing on the Côte des Basques. Biarritz would become the birthplace of surfing in France and one of the places where the story of European surfing began.
And somehow, both worlds feel perfectly at home here.
Old villas and bare feet. Grand hotels and salt in your hair. Old glamour and Atlantic waves.
An elegance with a little life in it
Perhaps this is the side of French style we love most.
Something relaxed. Personal. Beautiful without feeling too carefully arranged.
A knit over a silk skirt. Espadrilles or ballet flats that have already walked more than a few streets. Something refined, but never too precious for a walk beside the Atlantic.
A little wind. A little salt. A little imperfection.
Biarritz through the eyes of Adèle & Soleil
Perhaps that is why Biarritz feels so close to the world of Adèle & Soleil.
There is history, but also freedom. Elegance, but always with a sense of ease. Old glamour that somehow feels perfectly at home beside Atlantic waves.
It is a place with stories, but one that never seems to live in the past.
Perhaps this is what draws us to places like Biarritz. The feeling that beauty can have history without feeling formal, and elegance can exist without being carefully arranged.
Inspiration can be found in the colours of an old façade. In the movement of the ocean. In something beautiful worn simply. In the light that changes everything for a moment.
And perhaps that is what stays with us after leaving.
Not one particular view, but a feeling.
Of history and freedom. Of elegance and ease. Of the Atlantic stretching out in front of you.
And always, somewhere, the sun.
Toujours le Soleil