Chic and Elegance

Dariaux draws a sharp and important distinction. *Chic* is innate — intellectual, intuitive, partially unteachable. It has nothing to do with beauty: Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo had chic; Rita Hayworth and Elizabeth Taylor, for all their beauty and jewels, did not. The Kennedy family had chic; the Truman family did not. Princess Diana had chic; Princess Margaret, who tried harder, had neither chic nor elegance — only conspicuousness. Chic cannot be acquired through effort; it can only be diminished by it.

*Elegance* is the other thing — and the better news. It can be learned. It is, in Dariaux's account, the product of art: of selection, self-knowledge, quality, discretion, and attention to the true silhouette. The whole book is a manual for its acquisition. A woman without natural chic, armed with intelligence and discipline, will always outrank the woman of natural chic who has made no effort to develop it.

The distinction matters practically. Chic is not a goal. It cannot be aimed at; trying is precisely what undoes it. The woman who has decided to be chic has already failed to be chic. Elegance, by contrast, can be aimed at — it is a practice, not a gift. It is available to anyone with sufficient intelligence, patience, and willingness to look at themselves honestly.

The figure of [[Princess Margaret]] is the canonical cautionary case: all the resources, none of the discipline, and the conspicuousness that results from trying too hard for a quality that cannot be acquired by trying.