In 2024, the Miss France company and Frédéric Masquelier, the mayor of Saint-Raphaël (Var), announced the creation of a museum dedicated to the history and evolution of the famous beauty contest. Initially planned for 2025, its opening has now been postponed to 2026.
The reason? Faced with the budgetary efforts requested by the State from local authorities for the recovery of public finances, the city of Saint-Raphaël has seen its budget reduced by more than one million euros. As a result, the town of Saint-Raphaël cannot meet the costs of developing the premises, estimated at 1.5 million euros, in the near future. But she doesn’t explain how she’s going to do it later.
Created in 1920 by the writer and journalist Maurice de Waleffe, the “most beautiful woman in France” competition has evolved significantly since then, until the creation of the “Miss France” committee in 1954, chaired by Geneviève de Fontenay in from 1981.
The museum, planned in a Belle Époque villa owned by the city, will cover 5,000 m2 spread over two floors and will retrace this history through archive images and videos. It should also accommodate part of the funds stored in Saint-Denis that the Miss France company makes available to the city for 10 renewable years, as well as hundreds of regional costumes, created by the stylist Amandine Catala for more than ten years, as well as as crowns, sashes and shoes.
On December 14, 2024, the election of Miss France 2025 was held at Futuroscope in Poitiers, with the new Miss, Angélique Angarni-Filopon, Miss Martinique.
