Dress
After Geneviève Antoine Dariaux
From A Guide to Elegance(Doubleday, 1964). Six principles drawn from the directrice of Nina Ricci’s Paris couture salons — on how to dress, how to choose, and why it matters.
- I
PrincipleAfter DariauxI
Elegance is Selection
Not wealth — choice.
No woman has ever lacked elegance because of an excess of simplicity but always because of an accumulation of elaborate details or of ensembles that are badly co-ordinated or ill-adapted to the hour and the occasion.
- II
PrincipleAfter DariauxII
Quality Over Quantity
Few perfect things, worn often.
The cost of an item is its price divided by the number of uses plus the pleasure and confidence it gives. The marked-down item worn once is more expensive than the costly item worn constantly.
- III
PrincipleAfter DariauxIII
Self-Knowledge
Before any choice, an honest mirror.
To be elegant is first of all to know oneself, and to know oneself well requires a certain amount of reflection and intelligence.
- IV
PrincipleAfter DariauxIV
True Fashion vs Passing Fashion
Anchor to the silhouette. Ignore the trim.
True Fashion is the deep current that changes the silhouette every four or five years — the work of a particular creator, marking an epoch. Passing Fashion is the seasonal ripple concerned with details and trimmings.
- V
PrincipleAfter DariauxV
Discretion Until Eight
The day belongs to restraint. The evening, to brilliance.
Evening is the only time of day when a woman has the right and even the duty to call attention to herself.
- VI
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Chic and Elegance
One can be learned. The other cannot.
One baby in its crib may have chic, while another doesn't. Elegance, by contrast, can be acquired by any woman of intelligence, discipline, and self-knowledge.