Finalists – Prix Picto de la Mode 2025 : Lisa Miquet

Lisa Miquet is a photographer and filmmaker who explores themes of identity, feminism and and societal norms, through a visually engaged approach. Her series “Childless Cat Lady” reclaims the stereotype of the “crazy cat lady” and turns it into a visual manifesto, celebrating feminine freedom and individuality. By deconstructing this myth, she presents women as sovereigns, in harmony with their own rhythm and free from societal expectations.

Lisa Miquet is a French photographer and filmmaker, born in 1991. Originally from Savoie, she studied at Sciences Po Grenoble before turning her focus to visual arts. She began her audiovisual career working with several media outlets such as TF1, France Télévisions, and Konbini. Her first documentary, “Elles prennent la parole” (52 min, 2017), produced by the collective Les Internettes, addresses online sexism and caught the attention of producers.

Spotted by Canal+, she travels to Lebanon to direct Bombing Beirut, an 8-episode documentary series that explores the emergence of the graffiti scene in the country.

A recipient of the Brouillon d’un rêve Impact grant from the Scam, Lisa also received support from the CNC (2020) to create “A Double tour”, a documentary series about domestic violence.

Alongside her video work, Lisa is also dedicated to photography, capturing portraits for major media outlets such as M le Monde, Reporters Sans Frontières, L’Obs, Elle, and Libération. She has photographed personalities like Billie Eilish, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Orelsan, Thomas Pesquet, and young rising stars of the Césars. She accompanied singer Angèle during the final leg of her Brol tour, creating images that went viral in both French and international press. In 2021, she co-founded Studio Calembour, a photography studio in Montreuil, alongside photographer Alessandro Clemenza.

Her clientele spans from the non-profit sector (Réfugiés.info, the Interministerial Directorate for the Reception of Refugees) to brands like Caudalie, Disney, and Netflix. For the past five years, she has worked with the Secours Populaire Français, covering field reports from food drives in the northern neighborhoods of Marseille to vacation programs for the “forgotten of the holidays” on the island of Oléron.

Her personal work draws inspiration from popular culture. She adds a touch of mischief even to the most serious or taboo subjects. She explores themes related to feminism and social equality, reflecting her personal commitment to the challenges of contemporary society.

“If you keep going like this, you’ll end up alone with cats!” This sharp phrase, often directed at single women, associates life outside the traditional couple with a negative image, as if a life without a man must inevitably be sad or incomplete. It is based on the stereotype of the “crazy cat lady,” the caricature of an older woman surrounded by cats, perceived as unhappy and eccentric. This demeaning image reinforces the idea that a woman must define herself by her marital status or fulfill herself through motherhood.

From the Malleus Maleficarum, a medieval treatise that accused women close to their cats of witchcraft, to contemporary pop culture, where the character of the “Crazy Cat Lady” in The Simpsons shows a disoriented old lady throwing cats at passersby, this stereotype seems deeply ingrained in our collective imagination. More recently, one of Donald Trump’s advisers referred to presidential candidate Kamala Harris and singer Taylor Swift as “Childless Cat Ladies,” claiming that, in his view, “in the eyes of powerful men, a woman without children appears to be a suspicious woman.”

Lisa Miquet wishes to reclaim this “insult” and turn it into a manifesto. She wants to deconstruct this myth, piece by piece, and shed light on this “crazy cat lady.” For her, it’s not a desperate relic, but rather the queen of her own kingdom, a soul at peace, evolving outside the expectations that others try to impose. Far from merely responding to a stereotype, her ambition is to create a visual manifesto. She aims to craft a poem in images, a true celebration of feminine individuality, free from societal pressures.

Here, every woman is sovereign, in harmony with her own rhythm. She listens to the whisper of the felines, who, like her, follow their own path, untamed. Lisa Miquet is convinced that images have the power to transform our imagination, which is why she wants to question this representation and shed new light on it. After all, what if being a “Childless Cat Lady” was a choice, a life full of independence, love, and freedom?

Scrolling is automatic, you can alors use the arrows to navigate between images. Click on the image to switch to full-screen mode.