The Duchesses of Quebec Carnival will be the faces of the celebrations alongside Bonhomme for 47 years. Even if the competition is now a thing of history, it has left certain traces in the collective memory and those who embodied it.
Claude Dombrowski was created Duchess of Montcalm in 1983 and was then Queen of the 29th Carnival of Quebec. He remembers that the election of the duchesses caused great excitement.
“We are changing times. It's the 1980s; I am a young woman of 23 who doesn't have much life experience, unlike the 23 year old women of today who have started traveling, who have started to gain, well, a lot of experience. Especially on that level, building your self-esteem, your validation, it was a lot for me,” recalls the retired nurse.
Claude Dombrowski (right) kept his 1983 crown as a souvenir. In 2014, during the reign of Mélissa Dumont (left), this object was replaced by a bobble hat! PHOTO DIDIER DEBUS SCISSORS
If morale developed, the competition was “a plus” for the event at the time, she said. She maintains strong friendships, as evidenced by a trip to Mexico in 2022 with members of her cohort.
An achievement
“I never felt like it was a beauty pageant and I had no say. […] “That’s an achievement,” she sums up.
Claude Dombrowski, in good company, in the winter of 1983. Photo provided by Claude Dombrowski
The Duchesses concept was scrapped in 1996 as it was considered outdated, then reintroduced for five years, from 2014 to 2018, in a formula to promote female entrepreneurship.
Mélissa Dumont, Duchess of Rivières, is the first Carnival queen in 18 years.
“I think that the duchesses have returned with a completely different objective, namely to promote the carnival, to come as a reinforcement for the different duchies and to decentralize the celebration a little,” emphasizes the current director of communications and human resources at Groupe Saillant.
“It’s significant in the sense that it was really crucial to my future career choice,” she continues. Her fondest memories are of bursts of laughter with her “six other girls” aboard the “Duchess Mobile” that carried her from one activity to the next.
Mélissa Dumont at her coronation in January 2014. Archive photo Karl Tremblay
Not in the plans
Quebec Carnival has no plans to revive the tradition in the foreseeable future, although “we are by no means denying the duchesses,” said general director Marie-Eve Jacob.
“It allowed young women to develop and have extraordinary experiences,” says Charlyne Ratté, executive member of the event’s board.
“There are some who are now in strategic communications positions,” she points out.
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