After successful outings in the likes of Sicily and Thailand, the smash-hit series is headed for France's glitziest coastline—but how do locals feel about such a strong spotlight?
Having lived on the Côte d’Azur for decades, I’ve learned to appreciate St. Tropez ’s off-season moods. Today the sun is pale, the sky milky, and there’s a lingering winter chill in the air. Streets lie nearly empty, boutiques remain shuttered.
A brisk wind whips across the yacht-less harbor. On the Place des Lices, not a single pétanque player is in sight. A pewter-haired gentleman pedals past on a rickety bicycle. A few designer boutiques have their lights on; outside one, a bored shopkeeper slips out for a cigarette while waiting for customers. It’s the quieter side of St. Tropez that visitors rarely see—the calm before the cameras arrive. Come April, one of television’s most talked-about series—HBO’s The White Lotus—will begin filming its fourth season here, adding a new twist to the Riviera’s long tradition of mischief and decadent pleasures. Regional tourism officials say reservations for the coming spring are already strong along the Côte d’Azur—though with the production still shrouded in secrecy, it’s impossible to know whether the shoot has anything to do with it. “People aren’t saying, oh là là this is amazing—at least not yet,” one staffer tells me. If the ripple from the show’s previous success is any guide, St. Tropez may soon see a tidal wave of set-jetters. “When the second season of The White Lotus aired—filmed at the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace in Taormina, Sicily—the reaction was immediate, ” says Pierre-Alexandre Francin, a private travel designer with First in Service and a former St. Tropez resident. “The hotel was overwhelmed with booking requests—something like 3,000 in the week after the first episode aired.” “The third season also boosted Thailand far beyond the property,” he adds. “People wanted to experience the destination for themselves.” For now, behind the scenes, preparations are quietly underway. Local contacts say production teams have begun searching for accommodation for cast and crew, while luxury cars and other logistics are being lined up in and around Saint-Tropez. At Nice’s Victorine Studios, a casting call for extras for an unspecified “American series,” published in Nice-Matin, drew a day-long queue of Gen-Z hopefuls—many seemingly unaware of what they were auditioning for. Wandering through the narrow maze of village streets, I stop at Rondini—the sandal shop where leather Tropéziennes have been crafted since 1927. The patron, Alain Rondini, says he has never even heard of the show and seems faintly amused by the idea that a television series might transform the town. He leads me upstairs to the atelier—once his grandparents’ apartment—where the smell of freshly cut leather hangs in the air. “Next year the shop turns one hundred,” he says with a smile. “I’m the third generation, and my daughter Anaïs is the fourth.” “In summer, there are already a lot of people. St. Tropez is a small village—at some point you simply can’t welcome more,” Rondini shrugs. Beside him in the atelier, Anaïs adds: “If it brings people here in the low season, that could actually be a good thing.” That thought is echoed more than once in conversations around the village. Viviane, whose high-end hippie-chic boutique Blabla has been a treasure trove of Ibiza-style threads and accessories for 45 years, is less interested in the production itself than in what always follows media exposure: curiosity. She remembers the frenzy when the reality show Loft Story filmed here years ago: “People queued outside the house just to look at it.” She pauses, shaking her head. “If The White Lotus brings people in April, May, or June, that’s one thing. In July and August, it would be hell.” On the tree-shaded Place des Ormes, a tranquil square in village backstreets, Walter Wolkowicz, who runs the marine antiques shop La Vieille Mer, sees the upside. “Any event that brings attention to the town can only be positive,” he says with a chuckle. “As a shopkeeper, a few more visitors certainly doesn’t bother me.” At the family-owned Hôtel Byblos, part of the Floirat Signatures collection, chairman Antoine Chevanne sees The White Lotus as the latest chapter in a continuing story of global fascination. “I’ve watched St. Tropez evolve since I was a boy,” he says. “This is another opportunity to shine a light on the village we know and love.” Just down the road, Alexandre Lebrat, sales and marketing executive at AREV Saint-Tropez—one of the village’s newer boutique hotels, reopening in March—says he also expects the series to spark international interest beyond the peak season. To longtime observers of Saint-Tropez, however, wealthy people behaving badly in a paradise setting is nothing new. Frédéric Mauch, author of L’Épi Plage: Une Saga Tropézienne, grew up at Épi Plage, one of Ramatuelle’s most legendary beach clubs. His parents took over the property in 1972, though its most notorious years belonged to the flamboyant founder Debarge—a pharmaceutical magnate, party animal, and prolific substance abuser known as the “Sun King of St. Tropez.” “If The White Lotus had been filmed in the 1960s, they could simply have put a camera at Épi Plage and started shooting,” Mauch says. He evokes the colorful cast: Françoise Sagan, Roger Vadim, and Brigitte Bardot, who celebrated her 37th birthday there, along with the occasional Hollywood anecdote—including Johnny Hallyday’s rumored fling with Natalie Wood in one of the bungalows. At times, the scene tipped into psychedelic debauchery—Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and the poet Allen Ginsberg were among those who drifted in for the infamous fêtes on the beach. “It has always been a kind of Comédie Humaine here—a whole theatre of characters,” Mauch reflects. “Rich patrons, artists, playboys, beautiful women—everyone gravitating around the same scene. Behind the glamour, there was a darker side—jealousy, broken dreams and plenty of tragedy.” Television is only catching up with decades of Tropézien drama. Originally published in Condé Nast Traveler UK.
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