Dutronc Disque

2026年10月18日

I was over in Antwerp the other week to catch the brilliant Six exhibition at the MoMu fashion museum. Antwerp is about an eighth of the size of London and so once I’d walked around the MoMu Fashion Museum, I had time to kill. The usual ports of call on city trips for me are: book, record stores and maybe a bar or two. The record shops are really very good in Antwerp- I've listed them at the end.

On this trip, I was reminded of the brilliance of Paris born musician Jacques Dutronc

You know how when you are digging in a few record shops in a day and you recognise an unusual pattern ? I don’t know Turning Japanese by The Vapors in all three stores in their respective ‘new in’ box. Well thats what occurred in Antwerp- I started seeing Jaques Dutronc Vogues E.P’s in the first three record shops. They speak Flemish and French in this region of Belgium, maybe a little more Flemish not that thats important but I expected to see Plastic Bertrand or more new wave punk stuff in Antwerp, this thought was honed courtesy of the Antwerp Six exhibition I'd visited that morning- it was all punk this and punk that.

The cool looking sod really stands out on his picture sleeves. So for the remaining 36 hours in Antwerp and several record shops, I decided that was my raison d’etre, clocking up my Jaques Dutronc singles collection. Jacques made his way onto Vogue records sort of through the back door as he'd previously been hired as a songwriter and artistic director of Disques Vogues, his first record was Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi, prior to that he'd been in the army, played session guitar for Eddy Mitchell, Micky Amline and Gene Vincent, Dutronc also had a band called El Toro et les Cyclones and trained as a graphic designer.

Jacques thankfully is still with us, at a mere 83 years of age. Unfortunately he lost his equally iconic wife Françoise Hardy in 2024 and there has rightfully been a renewed interest of her music internationally, films and her role as muse to: Andre Courreges, Paco Rabanne and Yves Saint Laurent.

Dutronc and Hardy started seeing each other in 1966, both signed to Vogues records, they appeared in Jaques Mini-Mini-Mini video the same year. Hardy & Dutronc are for me the absolute epitome of that long lost French cool. A far reaching signifier too, not just the mod lot. Sonic Youth used Francoise Hardy’s face on the 1995-1996 Washing Machine Tour, Birkin made it onto tour T-shirts. Years later at Thurston Moores Ecstatic Peace Library in Stoke Newington I picked up a few Hardy 7”’s. There is a versatility to this era of French pop and it undoubtedly captures gallic hip, that everyone gets, from Sonic Youth to The Style Council both buzzing off Francoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc imagery and sound.

In France in the mid-1960s no one sounded like Jacques Dutronc, he was unique, his tone was sharp and immediate, not the classic French warble or hammy American copycat crooning, it was new. The beat of his well know songs also helped to pave the way for the Ye-Ye sound that would come to dominate the continent.

When you mention Dutronc you also have to mention his personal style, some might even mention his style first- in his hay day his style was second to none in France. I’m imagining Mr.Dutronc today lounging on his Vladimir Kagan sofa, in his Charvet dressing gown smoking a Cohiba cigar over on Monticello. When he was out and about on the party circuit in Paris with Hardy they must have stopped traffic.

In late 1966 Dutronc released Les Playboys an unofficial dedication to Le Minets- essentially Mods à la Francaise movement. Le Minets were obsessed with English clothing and the signature look of this Parisian scene was from the feet up: English bench made Brogues, Flannel or Corduroy parallel trousers, Crest-pocketed 6 button blazers or Hounds Tooth hunting jackets, Shetland wool crew necks (worn snug), British regimental stripe ties. In the early days of the Anglocentric movement shops such as Arny’s on Rue de Sevres, Bertiel on Place Saint-Augustin or Old England opposite the Opera in Paris were THE clothing stores, which pretty much carried British labels, that we’d probably now consider fusty English country clobber.

However Le Minets were different to the original British mods in that, the French lot were wealthy teenagers, coming from Bourgeois families and they carried this look off to the manor born - there weren't no 'clean living in difficult circumstances' mate, with this scene by the Seine à Paris. Of course the British mods were in turn Francophiles, and taking on the Bourgeoise style that had been triggered by English clothing - keep up!

So successful was the look that Jaques Dutronc had also adopted, that French menswear labels caught on and began to make garments in the ‘style’ of Les Minets, parallel trousers, cropped length suppressed shoulder blazers, bright snug knitwear and slim arrow collar shirts - perhaps the most well known being Renoma a tailor and clothing manufacturer. Like all good looking scenes Les Minets ran its course from around 1962 to 1967 the end almost in sync with the British mod movement. The main hangout of the scene was Le Drugstore store on the Champs-Elysees in Paris in Dutronc's lyrics to Les Playboys:

“There are playboys by profession

Dressed by Cardin, shod by Carvil

Who drive around the beach and town in Ferrari

Who shop at Cartier as well at Fauchon

I’m not afraid of the petty pussycats

Who purr at the Drugstore

They work just like beavers

Not with their hands, nor their feet”

Its a slight dig at Les Minets, but equally he was influenced by the style of the movement, its similar self deprecating lyrics to that of: Dandy or Dedicated Follower of Fashion by the Kinks, in fact I’ve just checked and all three singles were released in 1966. I might be onto something, listening to them back to back: The Kinks & Dutronc are also similar in their cool as fuck but don't take themselves too seriously air- almost vaudevillian. The French media and those outside of the Les Minets were all disparaging about the movement. The original Minets listened to R&B, Soul and a choice few British bands and pretty much the only French musician they took to was Dutronc.

I've had this Special Pop magazine for ages now and I've read over the Dutronc article again, I wont translate all of it, just the final paragraph:

'Dutronc, meanwhile, carried on enjoying himself. A rascal of the highest order, he and Jacques Lanzman brought the songs of the time, cheeky nonchalant humour so sorely lacked'

Jacques Lanzman was a co-writer with Dutronc and ex-boyfriend of Simone De Beauvoir

Give Dutronc a listen he has been massively influential in France- bien sur, and at clubs here, the early days of New Untouchables mod nights would often play Dutronc, his Le Responsable was played out often in the Ye-Ye swirly room. Les Playboys isn't his best track ever- but from a mod perspective its lyrics and shout outs are worthy of your record box. Theres a 1990's UK mod tribute band called Dutronc, the band Stereo Total released a track called Les Minets and The Last Shadow Puppets have been influenced by Jacques Dutronc for sure. Monsieur Turner and Kane had an on-point 1960's style and their video clips, a nod to the nouvelle vague cinema - Turner singing a fluent French rendition of Dutronc’s Les Cactus was a real eye opener.