Elegance
By raincoasterWell, my life may not be normal, but it sure is glamorous: today when I was supposed to be posting I was instead locked in an art gallery which contained no list of staff phone numbers (I snooped everywhere, I tell you) but many, many paintings on the themes of powerlessness, distress and alienation. We bonded, those paintings and I, while I waited for someone, anyone with keys to come and release me from my empty, gilded cage.
Fortunately, raincoaster here is a resourceful woman possessed of a large handbag, and thus is never without a paperback and at least one back issue of Vanity Fair. So it was that I became re-acquainted with an old friend of mine, the book Elegance, by Genevieve Dariaux; through the intermediary of the book Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro.
Some background: Dariaux’s book is really the definitive literary examination of the concept and practice of elegance (What Would Jackie Do notwithstanding, and I’m sorry but Breakfast at Tiffany’s was about a call girl and Capote really wanted Marilyn Monroe in the role, so there). Tessaro’s book is a well-done chick lit look at what happens to a particular woman when she tries to live by the rules set out in the original. Dariaux also wrote Entertaining With Elegance, which I’ve had for perhaps twenty years and believe me, between that and Miss Manners you’ve got the distressing concept of social interaction just stone-cold covered.
In any case, Tessaro’s book quoted a part of Dariaux’s book relevant to the TeenyManolosphere and I thought I would reproduce it here. It fits very well with the Frugal Indulgent’s Manifesto which I quoted earlier:
Little daughters are understandably the pride and joy of their mothers, but they are very often also, alas, the reflection of their mother’s inelegance.
When you see a poor child all ringletted, beribboned, and loaded down with a handbag, an umbrella, and earrings, or wearing crepe-soled shoes with a velvet dress, you can be certain that her mother hasn’t the slightest bit of taste.
It is a serious handicap to be brought up this way, because a child must be endowed with a very strong personality of her own in order to rid herself of the bad habits that have been inculcated during her early years. The more simply a little girl is dressed – sweater and skirts in the winter, Empire-style cotton dresses in the summer – the more chic she is. It is never too early to learn that discretion and simplicity are the foundations of elegance.
Of course, to translate this to our modern world requires some rearrangement; for instance, anyone who’s seen Joe Simpson and his offspring knows that the above does not apply exclusively to mothers, if it ever did.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Such smart advice, raincoaster.
In Mr. Henry’s experience, little girls tend to be smart about fashion, actually. They sense when Mommy (or more often, Grandmother) has over-dressed them and they bolt.
In dress, in decor, and even in cuisine, simple usually does translate as chic. All you need to add is a smidgeon of confidence.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:26 pm
You know, it all depends on the girl, because I do know girls that like to overdo things, but in my mind, simple is best.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
To clarify, I think one must distinguish between the style in which a parent will dress a little girl, that in which a parent allows a little girl to choose to wear outside of the house, and that in which a little girl will array herself in when playing “dress up” in the confines of home. Because they are three different conditions, and given this post I shudder to think what the outfit my daughter was wearing when I got home yesterday bodes for her future. (She was playing princess dress up, and a yellow princess nightgown, purple corduroy hat adorned with a plastic tiara, a maroon clutch bag, blue socks, pink fuzzy slippers, and a random bead necklace, do not an elegant appearance create. Though she was quite adorable, in that “look mommy I’m playing dress-up” way. But she would not have left the house in that outfit.)
I also think it is important that children be allowed to make some limited decisions, so I always let her pick out her socks (blue, pink, yellow, lavender). This often results in inelegant mismatching, but she is young, and I think the importance of allowing her some control over her dress outweighs the importance of being all matchy-matchy.
But when I select her outfits, I do try for restraint, in both palette and frou-frou quotient.
Which art gallery? And I hope the imprisonment was not too prolonged.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:25 pm
It was the Gallery Gachet and the imprisonment was more alarming than prolonged. I’d meant to spend some time there anyway.
I think girls and even grown women get a pass to wear whatever they like when playing dress-up. It’s even one of Mme Dariaux’s recommendations, that you put on every single thing you own and look at it. I don’t think she meant at once, though.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
@ Glinda: what do their mothers look like? Maybe they come by it naturally.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
No, their mothers don’t dress flashily. Some girls are just born with the frou-frou gene, even if it skipped a couple.
And for the record, I don’t think play-dressing counts for this. Dress-up is all about the bling, and rightly so.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
@Raincoaster: This one? http://www.gachet.org/
The fairy tale dude sounds a little disturbed, as did the “self portrait as minotaur” artist. Then I noticed in the “about us” page that the gallery provides exhibition space to artists who are “informed by mental illness.” Are all the artists who exhibit there “informed by mental illness?” In which case, “powerlessness, distress and alienation,” indeed!
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:12 am
Oh, as more than one of the immortal philosophers has pointed out, if you’re not suffering from anxiety and dread, you simply do not have all the facts.
The art there is actually quite exceptional, as is the program administration.
Gallery Gachet is a unique artistic institution founded in Vancouver in 1992. Named after Vincent Van Gogh’s homeopathic doctor, Paul Gachet.
Gallery Gachet strives to provide a focal point for dialogue amongst outsider/dissident artists.
We aim to use the canvas of the outside work to educate and demystify the public on issues related to mental health and to advance the artistic discourse around these issues.
We provide the artists informed by mental health issues with opportunities to exhibit, curate, perform, read, teach and to develop their leadership skills.
Located at 88 East Cordova Street, close to the diverse populations that reside in Vancouver’s neighborhoods.
Actually, I ran into “Minotaur Dude” today at another opening. He’s a great guy.
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
I’m not knocking the quality of the institution or the art, nor the characters or intelligence of the artists; the gallery sounds a remarkable place, and some of the images of the art posted on the website are impressive. Those suffering from mental illness often have a deeper and different relationship to the experience of being human, and I’m sure their artistry could be both profound and informative.
I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be physically trapped for an unspecified period of time inside the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic, as revealed by art–I would think both illuminating and disturbing.
Well seem to have wandered a bit from the original topic. I continue to feel sorry for that poor child in the picture you posted here. How old is she? 5? And ought to be in shorts and a t-shirt outside making mud pies.
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Agreed. That getup? That is TRULY frightening. (PS it’s in our Caption Contest this week, if anyone feels like snarking).