Exemplary Figures

1. 01

   Duchess of Windsor

   Exemplar

   Never seemed to age, because she never radically changed.

   Dariaux cites the Duchess of Windsor alongside Princess Grace of Monaco as the clearest examples of a specific form of elegance: the elegance of fidelity to one's own line. Both women chose a hairstyle — a look, a register — and held it. Neither radically changed their appearance decade to decade. Neither chased each revision of the fashion.

2. 02

   Jacqueline Kennedy

   Exemplar

   Dariaux's supreme exemplar of modern elegance.

   Never, to Dariaux's knowledge, caught in a lapse of elegance. Always youthfully and casually dressed, in a fashion perfectly adapted to modern life, to her official position, and to her individual type. *Women's Wear Daily* named her *"Her Elegance."*

3. 03

   Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo

   Exemplar

   Chic without conventional beauty — Dariaux's central evidence.

   Dariaux cites Dietrich and Garbo as the clearest evidence for her central claim about chic: that it is entirely detachable from conventional beauty. Neither woman was beautiful in the era's prescriptive sense — not in the way that the term was applied to Rita Hayworth or Elizabeth Taylor. Both possessed chic in such concentration that the absence of conventional beauty was not registered.

4. 04

   Princess Diana

   Exemplar

   Chic and elegance combined — the rare case.

   Dariaux's framework allows for the case Diana presents: a woman of genuine chic — innate, unteachable — who also developed considerable elegance over time. The combination is rare. The framework usually treats chic and elegance as separate gifts; their combination in a single person is noteworthy precisely because it demonstrates that the learnable quality (elegance) is not diminished by the possession of the innate one (chic).

5. 05

   Princess Margaret

   Cautionary

   By trying too hard to be chic, succeeded in being neither regal nor elegant — only conspicuous.

   Princess Margaret had access to everything — dressmakers, jewels, position, the most distinguished company in England — and yet produced inelegance. The diagnosis is the one Dariaux reserves for the most instructive of cautionary cases: she confused conspicuousness with chic, and effort with effect.

6. 06

   Queen Elizabeth II

   Mixed verdict

   Critiqued with specific precision.

   Dariaux's verdict on Queen Elizabeth II is one of the book's most instructive passages, not because it is harsh but because it is precise. The specific complaints: over-trimmed hats; open-toed shoes worn too often, too often in white; bad corseting. These are not vague criticisms of a general tendency. They are the diagnoses a skilled *directrice* makes on the evidence of photographs.

7. 07

   Rita Hayworth and Elizabeth Taylor

   Cautionary

   Beauty without chic — the reciprocal cautionary case.

   Both women possessed beauty in such measure as to define the era's standards for the quality. Neither possessed chic, in Dariaux's reading. The jewels did not supply it. The fame did not supply it. The careful dressing — and both women dressed carefully, expensively, with access to the finest — did not supply it.

On Princess Margaret