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Drink Pastis by the metre and party till dawn! The genderfluid French superclub in the heart of cowboy country
Stars, cowboys, village kids and drag queens – they all flock to La Churascaia, the bullring-like nightspot in the Camargue marshes. As it notches up 60 years of freewheeling hedonism, we celebrate an unstoppable rollercoaster
Once one of France’s coolest nightspots, La Chu’s rustic setting gave it a uniquely eclectic clientele: callused cowboys from the Camargue’s bull-ranches, village kids hopped up on the rock’n’roll infiltrating Europe, local gay men and women finally able to express themselves and Parisians on the hunt for something more authentic and wild (mosquitoes included) than the typical big-city spots. The entire club was a reflection of Lafont’s penchant for theatricality, suggests the designer: “There was this aspect of a fashion show, because you didn’t go to the Chu dressed any-old-how.” Lacroix used to attend decked out head-to-toe in red velvet. But La Chu’s sense of fiesta abandon and flair for the unexpected continues to attract revellers from further afield, with its music policy, as Campilongo points out, liable to suddenly break out of techno into jubilant bursts of Abba.
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