Saint Tropez in the south of France has long been associated with the rich and famous.

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His trademark work with unconventional fabrics like embellished denim and leather, mixed with wild animal prints and exotic patterns, was embraced by the jet set and Cavalli opened his first boutique in Saint Tropez in 1972.

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Son of an accountant, he grew up in a small French town near Saint-Tropez and got a business degree.

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Two hours by car southwest of the Athens airport, Porto Heli is a pretty yachting town that increasingly resembles a Greek version of Saint-Tropez.

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And to the east, with a very different attitude to dress, Brigitte Bardot brought fame to the fishing port of Saint- Tropez in her 1956 film And God Created Woman.

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Eleven miles to the southwest of Saint-Tropez, the Domaine du Rayol is a garden overlooking the sea, which brings together the best of Mediterranean and Mediterranean-style landscapes, from Provence to Australia.

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Today, in addition to her rambling home and studio, she owns a house on 35 acres in the South of France, near Saint-Tropez, where she retreats for most of the summer to work.

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When the novel came out in Paris, from a different publisher, Morini had already made his fourth and fifth films, a conventional but engaging French detective story and a turkey about a supposedly amusing family vacation in Saint-Tropez.

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In the once rarefied fishing village of Saint-Tropez, the 300-foot super-yachts and private jets of the new-nouveau riche were gassed up and fruit-of-the-month-vodka-stocked, the Estonian "special-events models" booked, the guest lists of bold faces edited to meet gossip-column requirements.

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