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A kiss-cut vinyl sticker featuring a detail of Laissez-moi grandir, 1965, by Lefor-Openo.
The posters of postwar France rarely made plain its daunting economic challenges. Instead, advertising focused on producing bright, optimistic images that saturated streets with cute rather than with chaos. This trend was epitomized by a female design team known as Lefor-Openo (Marie-Claire Lefort and Marie-Francine Oppeneau), whose signature upbeat, cartoonish characters would become emblematic of French mid-century commercial and political advertising.
Three years before he was up for reelection, Charles de Gaulle amended the French constitution to allow the president to be elected by direct universal suffrage rather than by an electoral college. The 1965 election advertised in this poster would be the first to adhere to this new system. Lefor-Openo created a design featuring a young girl wearing multiple patriotic symbols: a dress made up of the French tricolor, the Phrygian cap with the tricolor cockade (representing Liberty), and a badge with the “v” for “victory.” She is reaching for the hand of de Gaulle himself (indicated by the starred cuff of his military uniform). Combined with the tagline “I am seven years old; let me grow up,” she stands in for the Fifth Republic as it asks de Gaulle to guide it through adolescence and provide the stability of a father figure.
Manufactured for Poster House by Busy Beaver Button Co. Measures 4 x 2.2 inches.
© Estates of Marie-Claire Lefort and Marie-Francine Oppeneau, All Rights Reserved.
