Scenes at the Le Monocle Lesbian Nightclub in Paris in the 1930s

Le Monocle was a well-know lesbian bar located in Montmartre section of Paris, France that was open from the 1920s through the early 1940s.

During the 1920s, Paris gained a reputation for the variety of its nighttime options and for its free and easy attitude toward life in general. As a result, many gay and lesbian nightclubs opened and flourished. Among these was Le Monocle, which is credited with being one of the first, and certainly the most famous of lesbian nightclubs. It was opened by Lulu de Montparnasse in the Montmartre area, which at that time was the main gathering place for Parisian lesbians who were often seen at Montmartre’s outdoor cafes or dancing at the Moulin Rouge. Le Monocle’s scene was describe by Florence Tamagne as, “All the women there dressed as men, in Tuxedos, and wore their hair in a bob.”

The name Le Monocle derived from a fad at the time where women who identified as lesbian would sport a monocle to indicate sexual preference. The writer Colette once observed the fad by describing women in the area as “often affecting a monocle and a white carnation in the buttonhole.”