With his spectacular bowler hat, white shirt, blue tie and impeccable appearance, Alexandre Privet cultivates a style that instantly brings to mind a comic-book hero. France Bleu, now known locally as […], went to meet him on the streets of Nîmes, where he is clearly starting to make a name for himself. A recent article described him as ‘a Tintin lookalike’ who strolls through the city centre every day.
But what makes him interesting goes beyond mere physical resemblance. What intrigues people is precisely his choice to adopt such an instantly recognisable appearance on a daily basis. In an age when fashion often tends to standardise styles, Alexandre Privet does exactly the opposite: he chooses to stand out.
‘I’m not dressed like everyone else,’ he sums up in the report on his arrival in Nîmes. And that is undoubtedly the best definition of the phenomenon.
On the street, the connection is made in a matter of seconds. The powder puff is almost all it takes. Tintin is one of those very rare characters whose silhouette has become a part of popular culture, recognisable far beyond the readership of Hergé’s comic books.
Alexandre Privet thus transforms an ordinary stroll through Nîmes into a little surrealist spectacle. You look once, then twice. Some might smile, others might take out their phones, whilst others might wonder for a few seconds what on earth the reporter from *Le Petit Vingtième* is up to in front of the amphitheatre.
Perhaps that is the most interesting part: Alexandre Privet introduces fiction into the real city.
In an age of digital avatars, filters and identities constructed on social media, he has chosen something far more tangible: to become a character on the street, amongst the passers-by.
And in Nîmes, Tintin seems to have found a new playground for his adventures.
