Bertrand Desprez /  Book Design

Des hommes et des géants (Men and Giants)

The giants of Northern France do not merely parade through the streets — they inhabit a collective memory. Carried on the shoulders of men who disappear beneath their immense wicker skirts, these towering figures seem to emerge from another time, somewhere between folklore, ritual and dream. In Men and Giants, Bertrand Desprez captures this fragile and powerful world with tenderness and intensity, revealing both the spectacle and the humanity hidden inside the procession.

Born in Douai on the day of the Gayant festival itself, Desprez approaches these giants not as distant symbols, but as part of his own intimate history. His photographs move between documentary and reverie, attentive to gestures, faces, costumes and moments of suspension, where tradition becomes almost mythical. Through his lens, the giants appear less as monuments than as living presences — embodiments of memory, community and transmission.

Designed by Christian Kirk-Jensen / Danish Pastry Design and published by Les 8 Cobras in the Collection Free-Style, this book celebrates a popular heritage that continues to resist disappearance through collective devotion, craftsmanship and wonder.