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Chloë Cassens
On Finding a Voice
and Carrying a Legacy
Chloë Cassens is a writer, researcher, and custodian of Jean Cocteau’s most significant private collection, the legacy of the Séverin Wunderman Foundation. Through her long-form platform Sacred Monster and in her newly published book of the same name, she has been re-mapping Cocteau’s presence across contemporary culture, from cinema and fashion to queer genealogies and the politics of memory. The book, part essay, part curatorial meditation, is finding its way into Paris at Librairie 1909 bookstore and a network of independent bookstores worldwide.
IMG: Chloë Cassens, Credit: Antoine Plainfossé
You work with Jean Cocteau’s legacy both through the collection and through your own writing. How do you distinguish for yourself when you are a curator, a writer, or
a researcher?
I don’t really separate them. I research so that I can write, and a lot of curation comes directly from that. It’s all intertwined. Sometimes I start with an idea and then work backwards into research. Other times I’m immersed in research, I stumble upon something, and I think: this needs to become something bigger.
It’s all part of the creative process. Like a tangle of string: you pull on one thread, it unravels, and often not in the way you expect. Ideas often come to me out of nowhere. Even earlier today, I was having lunch, not thinking of anything, and suddenly an idea appeared. It’s like a light bulb switching on.
If I understand correctly, you first approached Cocteau as a scholar, and later came to represent the collection and create Sacred Monster?
Yes. My relationship with Cocteau’s work has been complex, even atypical. I began researching and writing about him academically very young, as a teenager. My first approach was formal, almost sterile - pure academic writing.
Later, through other circumstances, especially working with my grandfather’s collection, I developed a more organic way of engaging with his work. What I try to do now is to present material that’s rooted in scholarship, but in a way that people outside academia can access, people who don’t necessarily want to enter that world. Academia can be fascinating, but it’is also a very particular taste.
Your essays are very interesting and unique in form. How did you find your voice for this project?
My career has been very non-linear. I’m in my thirties now, but I started working in music when I was 14. At the time, I thought I’d be in the music industry forever. I worked at The Roxy, a legendary club on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. I did everything - booking bands, running their MySpace page. I stayed in music for almost ten years, including a stint in radio, but eventually realized it wasn’t for me.
And then, quite randomly, I became a sex educator. It started when I produced The Sex Ed podcast. Through that, I fell in love with the subject, producing and writing educational content on sexuality. It can be a difficult topic, but it’s universal. The Sex Ed reached almost every country in the world. That experience taught me how to speak about complex or uncomfortable subjects in a way that educates without condescension, treating the audience with dignity while keeping things clear.
And I think that you don’t have to use the high-brow academic language just to sound like you’re smart. You lose people by trying to appear a certain way. And so taking that sort of voice that I developed with The Sex Ed has been very centralized for me because, again, I try to assume that everybody is, if they’re reading my work, intelligent. They got to that point, so I don’t really care if they have a PhD or not.
IMG: Courtesy of the artist
The collection has its own history, it survived a flood, the museum closure, and a long period of dormancy. How have these events shaped your sense of responsibility toward the archive?
I can say that I definitely feel like the collection in its current state, with the flood, with the museum being closed, is very interesting to consider in relation to Cocteau’s history. (Editor’s note: In a recent Substack post, Chloë Cassens reflected on the future of the Foundation. Read it here: https://www.sacred-monster.com/p/a-note-about-the-musee-jean-cocteau) There’s a certain poetry to it. Strangely enough, several artists have reached out to me, saying they’re writing novels or plays where the flood is part of their work.
Seeing how this flood has become part of a broader narrative has been surreal. For me, it’s connected to my work not as a writer, but as a representative of my family. And yet, other artists have taken it and run with it.
One young writer from Paris reached out and asked if he could send me his novel. It was fiction, but the main character was partly inspired by my grandfather, and the prologue begins with the flood in the museum. Reading it was so surreal, it had taken on its own life, become its own thing. And then there was this playwright, Sylvan, in the U.S. - he’s considered one of the most important queer, transgender playwrights of our time. He approached me, said he was a big fan of Cocteau, and told me he had written a play incorporating the flood motif. He asked if I would read it and share my thoughts. I was stunned, someone of his stature asking for my opinion, almost as if for my blessing. Of course, nobody needs my blessing, but it felt strange and moving.
IMG: Chloë Cassens, Credit: Sal Owen Studio,2025
It must feel great to see that people respond not only to your research, but also to your own voice. Do you feel they are engaging not only with the scholarship you bring, or with the way you personally shape Cocteau’s legacy?
It’s always gratifying to receive respect for work, especially as women, because so often recognition is tied to appearance rather than substance. Writing is solitary. Often it feels like you’re throwing your words into a void. So when people not only read but also respect what I write, it’s such a pleasant surprise. But truly, it’s interesting, I had never considered myself such a strong voice for him. I always thought it was just the writing, just me, and that people could take it or leave it. And then it hits you - great, one more person has been converted into the Church of Jean Cocteau.
IMG: Courtesy of the artist
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