A shoulder to crayon for French ladies
Children’s art books prove a tonic for depressed women, writes Rory Mulholland
FRENCH women have taken en masse to colouring books to seek stress relief. France now leads the world in colouring book sales after publishers, in a stroke of marketing genius, started to put the words “antistress” or “art therapy” in large letters on their covers.
The vast majority of adult colourers are female, publishers say, and women have formed social media groups where they proudly post their work and share tips on new books or where to buy the best crayons.
Cynthia Riviere, who administers a Facebook group of more than 1 000 colouring book fans, says she spends at least an hour a day colouring.
“I realised that colouring makes my headaches go away. I concentrate, my breathing slows down and I move into a deep calm,” said the 35-year-old housewife from the southern city of Arles.
Numerous studies have put the French among the world’s top consumers of antidepressants. With the colouring book craze, publishers may have hit on a way to fight stress and depression without having to take pills.
Seven of the 15 bestselling titles in the “practical” category are colouring books, which now shift faster than cookbooks in France.
Five of them are in the massively popular Art Thérapie — 100 Coloriages Anti-Stress series by Hachette, which offers “psychedelic”, “medieval art”, or “extraordinary gardens” pictures to colour. Another publisher has in its range an “antistress” title that offers “40 Qi Gong postures and 40 mandalas to colour”.
Marabout, a nonfiction publishing house, bought the English title Secret Garden — An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book by Johanna Basford. By adding “antistress” to its title, it has shifted far more copies than it sold in Britain.
A similar ploy was used by Hachette, which sold 300 000 copies of a title that had seen sluggish sales in Britain. “It was an instant success,” said Anne Le Meur of the publisher’s colouring book section. — © The Daily Telegraph, London