Category: good news women

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Monica Huszcz Delevaux

As the battle of the ski lifts intensifies across Europe, Macron & Co. warned this week that skiers hoping to hit the slopes in bordering countries over the holidays would be met with prefect-coordinated ‘random” border checks and week-long quarantines.

France – where downhill skiing is banned until January 20 (although resorts are open for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing) – is in agreement with Italy and Germany about a European-wide closure of all remontées mécaniques (ski lifts) until the New Year to avoid a third wave of Covid. Their diplomatic plea has fallen on deaf ears in Spain, Austria and Switzerland who are offering travel-deprived populations the possibility of a white Christmas on the slopes.

The Alps accounts for 43% of the world’s skiers that brings in €28 billion in revenue every year. After Austria, France generates the second-largest share of profits. The 350 ski resorts across France employ around 150,000 people and rake in $10 billion a year.

Unsurprisingly, there were protests on Wednesday in Chamonix as the first snow of the season fell. “It is devastating for everyone who works and lives here … everyone,” says Monica Huszcz Delevau, an American from Irvine, California, living in Chamonix. “Chamonix is based predominantly on tourism. If we don’t have tourists we don’t survive, it’s as simple as that.”

Monica, founder of Haute Wedding, one of Vogue’s Top 5 International Wedding Planners, illustrates how Covid is hitting her adopted ski resort by sharing the example of her business partner, Charlie Charlesworth, who also owns a transfer business, with the Geneva airport-valley route making up the chunk of its service.

“Charlie’s 2020 summer revenue was down 95% and instead of the ten chauffeurs he usually employs, this summer he had one driver. Projections for winter 2021 show that business will be down 90% over last year, and he will take only two drivers compared to 25 in a normal winter season. This is a decade-strong healthy company that saw its best year in 2019 and has now literally crashed overnight.”

The bilingual American in Chamonix

I first met Monica in 2018 at the inaugural ÖTILLÖ Swimrun in Cannes, where she was the finish line announcer and interviewing teams in English and French. The bilingual sports announcer also does the Nice-Cannes Marathon and Ultra Trail du Mont-Blanc and worked at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and the 2020 Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne.

Her French is flawless. “I studied French for six years in high school and college, which gave me a solid grammatical base, and then during my undergrad studies at California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo in the late 90s, I did a study abroad in Aix-en-Provence for a year. Being a college student helped, of course, but the real answer is a French boyfriend. Hands down, the best way to learn a language,” Monica laughs.

During her year abroad in France, Monica travelled throughout Europe and met a group at a youth hostel in Biarritz that were from Chamonix. “I came to visit them, loved it, came back for a ski season … and one ski season turned into two ski seasons, turned into three… and 20 years later I’m still here!”

Chamonix, she describes, is a mix of local Chamoniards and a strong international community so “it was super easy to fit in, but I also spoke French so that always makes things easier.”

Chamonix is vibrant 11 months out of the year and so benefits from longer seasons than most resorts in the Alps, which are only in full swing for three months in the winter and two months in the summer. “November here is usually grey and drab and that’s when locals go on vacation to exotic destinations to take a break from the mountains,” says Monica.

In the winter it’s all about skiing, Nordic skiing, skijoring (being on skis and pulled by a horse, a dog or a motor vehicle) but in the spring, summer and fall there are countless activities like mountain biking, road cycling, rafting, climbing, hiking, downhill biking, paragliding, photography walks, museums, concerts, trail-running, mountaineering, skateboarding … take your pick.

Monica reveals that life in the mountains consists of “regular stuff” – work, kids, homework – but that living in such a gorgeous place also “allows us to pursue a certain lifestyle with time spent outside doing one of the above mentioned activities whenever possible!”

After two decades, the American living in France admits she still gets frustrated with the lack of positivity amongst the French. “I wish my kids would experience school and sport in a way that is uplifting and hopeful, that type of positive mindset and perspective is more prevalent in American culture.”

On the flip side, when she goes back to California, American consumerism shocks her. “People are constantly buying, buying, buying …all the time. I, too, love my retail therapy, however, I find it over the top whenever I do get back stateside.”

She confesses she gets homesick for things like good Mexican food. “I am still on the hunt for an authentic Mexican restaurant in France even after 20 years!”

The Wedding Planner

Monica started Haute Wedding in 2009 with Charlie, a Brit with a corporate events background, and the pair began planning weddings in Chamonix and the Alps. They quickly noticed Americans were attracted to the French Riviera and Provence so they expanded their service and now specialise in only these three regions in France – the Alps, Provence and the Riviera. “We don’t do Paris, the Loire valley, or other regions … we are true experts in our chosen geographical locations.”

The must be experts. In 2016 and 2018 Haute Wedding was selected by Vogue USA as on the world’s Top 5 International Wedding Planners. “We honestly couldn’t believe it and we only found out from another planner who congratulated us when the Vogue publication came out. My theory is that one of their journalists went undercover, pretending to be a bride reaching out to us.”

Monica describes their couple clientele as being 98% international although they work with a lot of Americans, British, and expats. She gives an example of a French man engaged to a Brazilian living in NYC, or a German marrying an American living in Dubai. “Our international team grew up outside of France so we know where our couples are coming from, yet we have been living and working in France for so long that we ‘get it’ and know how to accomplish things efficiently and smoothly.”

For Monica, their “haute” weddings are a mixture of high quality service, attention to detail and vetting the best partners and suppliers all to the background of unique “jaw-dropping gorgeous” settings – historical palace hotels overlooking the Med, castles, vineyards, exclusive villas and luxurious mountain hideaways. “This is more than just a business for us. We honestly love coordinating and producing an event that brings together our couples’ love story with their friends and family – it is better in real life than in a fairy tale!”

Pandemic And The People

And how is the wedding planner coping in the year of Covid? “Covid started to affect our business in March 2020 for the spring and summer weddings, and our revenue has dropped painfully low as cash flow has become almost non-existent. Couples usually book weddings 12 to 18 months in advance and we charge 50% of the planning fees when they start the planning process, and the remaining 50% of our fees are due six to eight weeks before the wedding date. So the income we were supposed to get this spring and summer for the second half of payments has been pushed to 2021.

“Compared to other businesses we are ‘lucky’ because people still want to get married and they aren’t cancelling weddings, just postponing. Hopefully, those second instalments will come later down the line. For the time being we are in survival mode. It’s hard, no money, just hope to keep pushing us forward.”

The Haute Savoie is one of the regions in France where the second wave of the virus has been circulating the most. “The mood of residents here is basically frustration, distress and fear of losing everything they’ve worked so hard to build. We need to be allowed to continue living. The economical, psychological and emotional damage cannot be measured. At this stage we will be happy if we survive.

“During lockdown, I’ve continued coming to the office, the kids are in school and we’ve been trying to keep morale up by keeping busy, going outside and being even more thankful for what we do have in this beautiful place where we live … but the bank account is diminishing too quickly, and government aid, help from family and personal savings will not last forever.”

Photos courtesy of Haute Wedding.

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Elizabeth Gabay

“People forget quickly,” says Elizabeth Gabay, “Many people presume life has returned to normal – they do not realise the extent of the devastation. Both the Vesubie and La Roya should not be forgotten. We need faith and optimism.”

Elizabeth lives in Saint-Martin-Vésubie, one of the villages heaviest hit by Storm Alex eight weeks ago, on the night of October 3, that left 8 people dead and 11 missing in France. The town, with a population of 1,411 (Source: INSEEE 2017), was cut off from the rest of the world when its roads were washed away, along with hundreds of coffins from the local cemetery. To date, over 80 homes have been lost and this number continues to rise as the land remains unstable and wet winter weather is upon us. Temporary roads now provide a lifeline for the town but the Vesubie still has no sewage treatment works.

“It was like a war zone with helicopters 24/7. Three days after the storm, everyone was saying we would have to evacuate, which meant the village would be abandoned and die. There were no roads and we were isolated. About half the village left. The rest of us decided to fight to keep the village going,” Elizabeth describes.

“Communal soup kitchens and animal rescue were set up, counselors brought in to assist those suffering from trauma. Many people who lost homes have been temporarily lodged elsewhere, some in holiday accommodation in the village. People are being very stoic, tearful but moving on, while others have cracked from the stress of losing papers and photos. For some older people, they have lost everything and need to start again.”

  • What is left of the “new” cemetery.
  • Piano and a toilet
  • Signs on the balconies of houses with no road access read “Please get a road to us!”
  • The old police station flats survived remarkably well

For Elizabeth, one thing that has been very noticeable over the past two months is that “the expat community on the Coast seems very unresponsive to the disaster” in a town some 40 kilometres north of Monaco. So how did she end up in this commune on the edge of a glacial plate in the first place?

From City Life To Village Walks

Elizabeth moved to Saint-Martin-Vésubie eighteen years ago from London. “My husband and I and two small children decided to have an adventure and move to France. We looked round all the wine regions and Paris, but a chance discovery of Saint-Martin was a coup de coeur,” she recalls.

She was no stranger to the South of France. Although Elizabeth was born in New York, her mother missed Europe and her parents returned to the U.K. when she was two. As her father was from the Mediterranean and a native French speaker, every holiday they came south.

“In the 1980s my parents bought a holiday home in the Var. I had worked in the theatre, backpacked round the world and was looking for what next. In 1986, I set up my own business representing Provence vineyards in the U.K.”

As only one of 400 people in the world accredited as a Master of Wine (there are three in the Alpes-Maritimes), Elizabeth is an authority on the wines of southern France (and central Europe), and a Provence specialist for the Wine Scholar Guild (formerly the French Wine Society), guiding tours around the region and giving regular webinars on the wines of Provence and rosé. She has written the definitive book on rosé, Rosé: Understanding the pink wine revolution.

Although she had a strong link to the region, village life was not quite the same as the buzz of London with its large mix of people, museums, and theatre. “95% of people in the Vésubie are local French and we have found it harder to have as active a social life as in London. Still, it is never lonely; every time we walk into the village we meet people we know – so I love the community of a small village. Weekends and summers give wider diversity – a chance to meet some interesting people. Life in London with small children was expensive and my kids have had an ideal childhood here, as it is safe to go out and play, and there is a large garden and woods to explore.”

She says that although her family is accepted and part of the community – they are also very involved in organizing the Marche de la Memoire, the annual walk commemorating the deportation of Jews in St Martin Vésubie in September 1943 – they “sometimes feel, even after 18 years, like outsiders.”

A formidable tambola (raffle), running until December 16 in
aid of victims of Storm Alex, has been set up by French singer Julien Doré, whose grandparents were from the Vésubie valley.

On Top Of The Disaster, There Is Covid And Accusations

In Saint-Martin-Vésubie, the risk of getting Covid has increased as 1,000 workers were brought in for search and rescue of bodies, helping those stranded, building temporary roads and services, and stabilizing risky buildings. (Elizabeth points out that its thanks to Nice mayor Christian Estrosi and MP Eric Ciotti the town wasn’t abandoned and left to die.)

Mayor Ivan Mottet, 73, has not been strict about lockdown, but Elizabeth and her family have chosen to be stricter and remain quite isolated

“Lockdown has been emotionally very difficult. We had a long week of one café being open and it was packed everyday with those of us who had stayed on. We needed the community and to be able to chat.

“The mayor and the municipal were elected in June and were out of their depth at the beginning. The prefecture sent up a crisis management team for three weeks. The town hall is working very hard but communication is not their strong point so there has been a lot of anger. And in the meantime, villagers are discussing plans for the future, which is not always easy as everyone has a different agenda on which direction to go to revitalise a village that was already in decline for various reasons,” Elizabeth says.

She adds, “Insurance companies have ranged from fantastic to real bastards. I heard today that a resident has not been able to get to her house for 8 weeks. All the roads around her home have gone but, miraculously, the house is still standing even though she cannot access clothes or papers or anything. Insurers say that the house is still there so nothing to pay.”

There is concern over the lack of transparency, information and consultation of residents by mayor Mottet (who won with only 59.89% of the vote), and especially his decision, as reported in Nice-Matin, to take away control of the distribution of donations from the non-profit organisation, Secours Populaire. Facing critics shouting cronyism – “all the friends will benefit, the others will have to make do” – the mayor defends his decision by saying the Secours Populaire has overly restrictive criteria for receiving aid: “You have to be below a certain income threshold to benefit from it, so what we’re talking about here is giving out to people who have lost everything.” he told the French daily.

Hélène Martin, who launched a collective in her neighborhood so that the residents “are not forgotten” has said that “between the prefect, the metropolis, the department and the elected officials, there are people who speak for the Vésubie … but inhabitants are afraid of not having their voice.”

Covid And The Wine Industry

With Covid and lockdowns this year, Elizabeth says her “income has been devastated” but she is no longer travelling on a weekly basis, which was part of her work as a senior wine consultant. “I have been very busy working online, writing mostly for trade magazines to support the struggling wine industry and to help vineyards.”

She launched a weekly Instagram live chat with a wine colleague called #iloverocknrosé.

With more people staying put this holiday season, it could be a time to discover local wines. “Of course, a glass of bubbly – a Pink Prosecco has just been launched by the appellation. Villa Sandhi – is lovely. I increasingly find sparkling wines are better if decanted, not too cold and in a normal, not flute glass brings out the fruit.

“I am a great fan of sweet and fortified wines, they feel very special as they are not part of everyday drinking. Although I do not eat foie gras, a sweet wine with cheese, salty nibbles, dessert or on its own really is heart-warming.

“I taste a lot of rosé, L’irreductible from Domaine Bégude in Bandol is great for winter, and if you have leftovers – mulled rosé is delicious – more delicate and the chance for more fragrant spices.”

When The Storm Passes

When the rain stopped at 4 pm on October 4, the main street of Saint-Martin-Vésubie was a flood of water and rocks. “The village square, full of firemen, was strangely silent. My son and I walked to the Vésubia sports centre and saw the size of the muddy torrential river,” Elizabeth narrates.

“I think that was when it first hit us. The park, tennis courts, car park had all gone. We saw the petrol station fall – in my memory in slow motion, none of the panic or hysterics you think – there were about five of us in shocked silence. The gendarmerie has gone, the brewery, builders’ yards… the cemetery is going… someone shouted “GET OFF THE BRIDGE!” …. We were still in slow motion.

“We went home and saw the level of the Madone river at the bottom of our garden had risen dangerously. My husband still thought the biggest problem was water coming into the cellar. Without power, we lit the fire, opened the fridge carefully, ate dinner by candlelight and closed the shutters to hide the noise of the rocks crashing down the river.”

The next day, Elizabeth and the rest of town faced the damage. “The village was completely silent, everyone just looking at the size of the river, the number of houses gone. We had no electricity, no water, no WiFi for texting, no phones … A recently widowed friend lost her house and everything and she and her kitten came to stay with us.”

Four days later, electricity generators were flown in and mobile phones re-connected but they had no water for three weeks. “It will take at least six months to repair the roads and some of the structures of the buildings. “I think the disaster has hit the local French more as many come from arrierè-pays families and have spent childhood holidays up here. The expat community seems very unresponsive to the disaster. I am on many expat Facebook groups no mention while on French groups, people are very involved,” says Elizabeth Gabay.

All images are courtesy of Elizabeth Gabay.

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Kerri Moss Beaumont

New Yorker Kerri Moss Beaumont ran her first business at the age of eight. “I was desperate to buy Jordache jeans and my parents were having none of it.” So she started Radio Red, selling homegrown tomatoes over the summer. “I’d fill my Radio Flyer red wagon and walk around the neighbourhood pitching my grandmother’s Italian pasta sauce recipe that needed $5 dollars worth of tomatoes.” Sales were so good that Kerri bought buy two pairs of jeans – at $42.99 each.

From a young age, Kerri understood sales was about knowing what the consumer wants and needs and then working out the difference. “You could say this stuff is in my blood. My Dad was Director at British Airways for Sales and Marketing for years and we used to go and look at toothpaste and figure out the trends on packaging and how they would shift product using discounts. To this day, I’m obsessed with stalking supermarket shelves.”

Kerri launched her “second” business, Naughty + Nice, in France in 2018, although she’d been toying with the idea of an organic juice business for a while.

Since 2013, she had been giving juice to her yoga clients on the Côte d’Azur when she was visiting from London. “Many would joke about throwing in some tequila post-yoga. And so the seed was planted for a ‘Detox, Retox, Repeat’ idea of a cold pressed organic juice that doubles as a cocktail mixer.”

Then in 2017, Kerri and her “very English” husband, Ian, took their four daughters – Lauren is now 14, Daisy 13, Coco 11 and Tallulah 9 – sailing across the Pacific Ocean on a small sailing yacht. “During that year, we were fortunate enough to enjoy loads of fresh produce and cold pressed juices and it highlighted the importance of nutrition for the whole family. From travelling, we also realised how cocktails are made of processed junk and most drinks on the supermarket shelves are also pasteurised and full of additives.”

The following year, the family relocated permanently to Valbonne. In May, Kerri was on Eddie Irvine’s yacht during the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix for the official launch of Naughty + Nice. “Nothing can wholly prepare you for starting your own business, especially in France. A director of Carrefour who is a client and now a friend told me that in the U.S. people would say Naughty + Nice is delicious, whereas in France they say ‘That’s not bad’ even though they mean the same.”

As a woman running a business, she finds the French “slightly antiquated and old fashioned but once I realised I wasn’t going to change the system, I worked out how to make it work for me.”

With a busy household (there is a boy dog to keep Ian company), you’d expect lockdown to be tough but Kerri admits, “It was similar to being on a 60-foot sailing yacht for a year as a family. When you are in ‘isolation’ – our longest sail was 15 and a half days from the Galapagos to the Marquesas – your emotions are on high alert and anything that has been repressed will rear its ugly head. On the boat, and during lockdown, we encouraged the girls to journal and to talk to us. And we reverted to the sailing attitude Chez Beaumont, getting up with the sun, eating healthy food and listening to music with lots of nice wine and good films.”

During the first lockdown, Naughty + Nice was delivering every day, which Kerri shares was a lifesaver. “Being out and making people happy was divine. For example, we delivered to Bill in Monaco who turned 100, that was a very special moment indeed.”

The fruit and veg organic juice company also donated drinks to the Lenval Children’s Hospital in Nice, and in Cannes and Mougins. “I thought that those on the front line would really benefit from a natural energy boost and immunity protection. Word got out … so we ended up shipping to hospitals up in Paris, too. In Monaco, the hospital wasn’t accepting donations due to Covid restrictions but the Red Cross team was great and we gave when we could over several months.” When Kerri received a letter in July from Prince Albert thanking her for her initiative and support, she “immediately called my Mom.”

For Lockdown 2.0, Kerri says she’s using food as medicine and doing a juice and raw fruit fast for the month of November. “Well … until Thanksgiving! I figure a whole body and mind reset is the best way to approach the restrictions.” She adds that as her family has been separated from most friends and other family members, they are hugging at home even more. “This habit started on the boat and is really in full swing now. It lifts the spirit like nothing else.”

Kerri is also using lockdown to work on expanding her business across Europe, starting with the U.K., and will be fundraising in early 2021 through Crowdcube. “My solid education and undoubtedly my ad agency days at TBWA\Chiat\Day in NYC and M&C in London have given me skills that enable me to get the marketing sorted in an efficient and effective way. And I think that Naughty + Nice has taken off so quickly because we are relatable, fun and we don’t take ourselves too seriously. In today’s world this can be worth its weight in gold!”

On top of raising a family and running a business, Kerri is dedicated to sports “I’m pretty sure my Dad had me throwing and catching a ball before I could walk.” At 11, I started running before school with my yellow Sony walkman and a tape of Tracy Chapman and Paul Simon. I would get out before the sun was up. I’m the oldest of five kids and the house was always mental in the morning – so this was my way of finding peace.”

Kerri has run a few marathons – “there’s nothing like London” – and recently entered the world of multiday stage racing, competing in the Coastal Challenge in Costa Rica and training for the Everest Trail Race, which was cancelled this year. “The way the body can adapt is all about the mind and I absolutely adore it. The 250-km Marathon des Sables was a beast … I was that person in the First Aid tent on the first day as I forgot my inserts for my trainers so I had blisters all over both feet. And I mean all over. On the second morning I could barely walk to the open air loo and I remember thinking not crossing that finish line wasn’t an option. So I put mind over matter and pushed on.”

As a young girl, she always wanted to run marathons. “And I wanted to be a pilot. One down, one to go!” Kerri Moss Beaumont laughs.

Photos byTatiana Trunova and art direction and stylist Sam Lord.