nourishing obscurity

This is, unfortunately, in the style of “I don’t know much about it but I know what I like”.

Looking out over the beauty of the snow which fell overnight and transforming this area into a winter wonderand, elevating the mood and turning the mind to fine things, I chanced upon a few pictures in The Mail and was appalled – such offences against form and style.

Let’s start with a kids’s party – we forgive chidren, don’t we because they haven’t a clue what constitutes style and throw anything on they can find?   The only one looking halfway decent here is second from the left – she even has the glance out of the corner of the eye to go with it.

Now, one would expect that adults woud have more sense of themselves than kids but I offer Exhibit A:  an offence against creation:

What is that?!!!  Everything is wrong with it and as the Mail writer said:

“Hideous. The gothic eye make-up and Helena Bonham Carter hair make her look frightful, and I hate the stiff brocade jacket and velvet fishtail dress, which are decades too old for her.”

Whatever was she thinking with that hair and that expression?  It comes down to this hotch -potch eclecticism of today’s woman having zero style, a situation arising from the liberation of the female from any sort of femininity due to the nu-Jolie faux-empowerment and it completely destroys grace and charm.  Hands on hips in that kick-butt, “you can’t oppress me” manner – it is quite righty hideous.

I blame her couturier who needs his/her head read and is obviously part of that haute-couture horror which takes a near-beautuful woman and then tries to ruin her, in keeping with all elite driven moves to destroy beauty and replace it with a word I haven’t quite coined yet.

Now, compare that to Eva in the photo below:

Still tending to the slutty but 2000% better than before – at least she approximates a woman here.  In the one below, the boobs go back where they should [why do modern women think their boobs and legs are the only part of the anatomy to let hang out?] and the accent is on femininity.

Yes, femininity.  Is there anything wrong with that?  Is it an offensive word to the modern woman?

Face, arms, neck, figure, understated, slightly “girl next door whom you can’t leave alone” – she shows her beauty to best effect and look what she’s doing with her hair to achieve it.  It’s no accident that the 30s glamour coincided with the era of shorter hair or hair worn up.  After all, long tresses are gorgeous but not blearrrrugggh – just hanging down either side of the face.

So Eva can do it when she’s in the right hands and the right hands are not the androgenous, high-glam fashion mafia.

Why are women trying so hard to get back to style, rediscovering 30s fashion and then not being able to actually carry it off?  Women were no better or worse in character in the 30s than they are now – there were still Bonnie Barrows and Ma Barkers, along with the Lillian Gishes – but there is definitely something different when a woman cannot carry that look of the 30s today.  She can dress up in the clothes but when she moves, she moves modern and looks dressed up.

What is modern?  Modern is stylelessness, without grace and deportment – things which were once valued in a woman.  Modern is not dressing to go shopping, laughing at gloves and hats, refusing to accept the power of femininity and attempting some kind of non-existent faux-power struggle with men who coudn’t have cared less about oppressing them but are now thinking it might not be such a bad idea after all. [Only kidding]

An example of having not a clue about how to be graceful or elegant is Gemma Arterton who makes an attempt at  style here but is basically just slutty in this attempt to show off all her assets at the one time:

Even I know this principle and as the article says:

Poor Gemma got it hopelessly wrong on the red carpet … at the Quantum of Solace premiere.  She chose a bizarre purple mini-dress by Miu Miu which was slashed to the thigh but trailed at the back.  She accessorised her outfit with an ugly studded belt and matching clumpy shoes, both of which were far too heavy for the flimsy fabric of her dress.

The 22-year-old from Kent was wise to avoid a long, demure dress as she would have looked like lamb dressed as mutton.  Sadly, she went too far in the opposite direction and chose a dress that was fussy, tarty and did her curvy figure no favours at all.  Of course, she is still young and entitled to make fashion faux pas, but she would do well to learn the golden rule of red carpet fashion: expose only one erogenous zone at a time.

That last point is what it’s all about but I’d add to that – not “expose” but “highlight”, “draw attention to”, “suggest”.  If you look at the genuine article – the fashions worn by women of the 30s to 50s, this principle comes through loud and clear – it’s all about shape, cut, curves, elegance, demure yet sexual – the principle of “less is more”.

Now, you’re the experts – why does Dorothy Lamour look so good?  What is she highighting here?  Shoulders, arms, neck, the curve of a jaw, lips, complexion, hair.  And the dress?  Understated but expensive and elegant.  Where are her breasts and legs?  Where they should be – on the modestly discreet desired list – there for the taking should the man be so lucky as to win her but not hanging out in a “here they are boys, feast your eyes” modern tramp manner.

Some women are definitely getting it near-right today:

… and as the blurb says:

Now that the future is looking grim, maybe embracing the past isn’t such a bad idea. While fashionistas look to ultramodern silhouettes for inspiration, Stop Staring! founder and head designer Alicia Estrada sees her visions in black and white. With a retro sensibility stitched through every piece, the vintage-inspired label which launched in 1996 samples from every era starting with the silver screen siren of the 40s to the groovy 60s pin-up to produce the ultimate in feminine fashion.

Why must it be called retro?  Why can’t it be just the normal cycle of fashion of the day?  Women look like women in whatever era so it’s just a case of developing a stye which compliments them.  I know the answer to my own question before going any further.  We can’t do it today or are unwilling to do it because it clashes with this hiedeous and ridiculous faux-empowerment thing where the last thing any woman is going to do is appear feminine again.

More than that, the young women of today have been brought up without good advice on deportment, how to act in company, how to maximize their natural charms – you know, the sort of thing mothers used to teach their daughters.

Feminine, to the harpies of the 60s who destroyed the modern woman, equates femininity with second class, oppressed, disenfranchised, when in fact it means nothing of the sort.  That was shown here and here.

I find Keira Knightley [if that is her] a thousand times more alluring below than if she was wearing some micro-bikini:

Please ladies, please fashionisti – let’s get back to a man being a man and a woman being a woman.  Please?

I wish to love again.

Filed under: Society & human issues