The mitchmen Royale Studio blog: Yves Grangeat (complete)

Vintage Wading in sea, pose in wet jeans, undressing, John Barrington

Yves Grangeat in wet jeans by Royale (set YVG-1)

Yves Grangeat was a French model and a solo set of him (YVG-1) featured in Royale's 1960 Catalogue, as the very last entry in List 'X' (10). All the pictures in the set show him posing in wet jeans on the French Riviera. Other images attributed to Royale around this time show him posing in a pouch in the same location, probably this was issued separately as set YVG-2 but that label is not documented.

Yves was described as a ship's carpenter who worked on the boats at Cannes on the Cote D'Azure. Royale also dubbed him a 'film star'. That's doubtful, but arguably he was one of the best looking models in Clavering's portfolio. However, these sets are also a curiosity. The outdoor, French, seaside location of these pictures is unique for a Royale set and this model never featured in a conventional Royale studio set or storyette either.

Significantly, photographs of him were also published by John Barrington who made an annual trip to the South of France to find and photograph new models and old friends on the beaches there. I suspect this is actually a contribution by him to the Royale Catalogue, he was friends with Basil Clavering and they also collaborated on other projects. Having the model pose in wet jeans (which he does in YVG-1) is very much a Royale fetish and one not particularly associated with Barrington, so it may be that Clavering commissioned him to do them. Support for that theory is found in the fact that Barrington did not publish any of these pictures under his own name.

Yves Grangeat by John Barrington

This is is one of Barrington's best shots of Yves (credited as John Paignton).

Predictably, Anglo-Saxons struggled with the spelling of Yves Grangeat's surname. He appears in beefcake magazines described variously as Yves Granglat, Grangreat, Gringreat and Granjean, In addition, the confusion was fed by both studios suppling alternative names of their own - Barrington used Yves Plage (corrupted to Piage by this publication), Royale called him Yves Genet in one magazine, which sounds like their practice of playing fast and loose with model surnames for camp effect. Possibly an on-the-spot substitution of a well-known French writer's name when unable to recall the unusual, real spelling.

Yves Grangeat Solo Sets for Royale

YVG-1 (Royale) Wet Jeans