9 Photos in François Prost's 'Gentlemen's Club' Strip Club Series

French photographer François Prost turned a cross-country drive through the United States into "Gentlemen's Club," a photo series documenting the exterior facades of American strip clubs, from a Florida beach town to the Las Vegas strip, according to CNN. CNN's gallery, published March 6, 2023, and updated the same day, shows nine images from the project along with brief captions identifying each club and city.

Who is François Prost and what did he photograph?

Prost is identified by CNN as a French photographer who set out on a road trip across the U.S. with an unusual subject in mind: not national parks or diners, but the storefronts of strip clubs, also sometimes called gentlemen's clubs. CNN's report frames the project as an alternative travelogue — rather than natural wonders or culinary landmarks, Prost sought out the roadside architecture of the adult entertainment industry. The resulting images, compiled in the book "Gentlemen's Club," focus on building exteriors rather than interiors or performers, according to the captions CNN published with its gallery.

Which clubs and cities appear in the published photos?

CNN's gallery presents the stops in a specific order, though the outlet does not publish a detailed date-by-date itinerary of Prost's trip. Based on the captions CNN provided, the sequence runs as follows:

• Fort Myers, Florida — Fantasy at the Beach, the image CNN uses to open the gallery.
• North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California — VIP Cabaret.
• El Paso, Texas — the Xcape Mens Club.
• Laughlin, Arizona — an adult book store, one of the non-club adult establishments included in the series.
• El Paso, Texas — Montana Hideaway, described by CNN as having a "sun-drenched facade."
• Las Vegas, Nevada — Little Darling, which CNN notes is one of more than a dozen Las Vegas establishments featured in the full book.
• El Paso, Texas — Foxy, whose signage reads "Where the Party Never Ends."
• Los Angeles, California — Dreams Club.
• Tampa, Florida — Emperors, the final image in CNN's gallery.

What do the signs and slogans reveal about these clubs?

Much of what distinguishes one facade from another, per CNN's captions, comes down to signage and slogans painted or mounted on the buildings themselves. Foxy's sign in El Paso promises "Where the Party Never Ends," a phrase CNN highlights as representative of the branding found across the series.

"Where the Party Never Ends" — signage on Foxy, El Paso, Texas, as captioned in CNN's gallery of François Prost's "Gentlemen's Club" series.

The captions suggest these buildings function as a kind of vernacular American roadside architecture, using bold text and simple graphics to announce themselves to passing drivers, not unlike the diners and motels more commonly photographed in cross-country travel projects.

How many photos and clubs are included in the project?

CNN's own gallery totals nine images, but the outlet makes clear the book contains considerably more. Las Vegas alone contributes over a dozen clubs to the finished collection, according to CNN, making it the most heavily represented city among the locations the outlet describes.

By the numbers

• 9 — photos included in CNN's published gallery from the series.
• 12+ — strip clubs in Las Vegas alone featured in the full "Gentlemen's Club" book, per CNN.

Where can readers see the rest of the series?

CNN's article, written by Megan C. Hills and published under the outlet's Style/Arts section, remains the primary public summary of the project's scope, including the book title and the roster of cities represented. The outlet's gallery functions as a condensed preview of a larger photographic survey that spans multiple states, built entirely around the exteriors of adult entertainment venues rather than their interiors or operations.

For readers tracking other photography and culture pieces that look at American places through an outsider's lens, CNN's full gallery and caption set remains the most direct public source describing the project's nine-photo preview and the book it was drawn from.