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.”
Dariaux is unsentimental on this point. A woman who refuses to know her own proportions, her own complexion, the temperature of her own city, will be elegant only by accident. Self-knowledge — what she calls *Personality* — is the recognition of one's physical, moral, and financial resources, and the courage to act on that recognition rather than imitate styles suited to a different type. Dariaux herself confesses she is tempted by styles that do not suit her, and imposes on herself a clear line through the styles she resists.
Self-knowledge also includes the social context: the work you do, the company you keep, the climate you inhabit, the rooms you actually walk into. Copying a style designed for a different physical type — even from a famous designer — produces inelegance. A wardrobe assembled for a life you do not lead is a costume, however beautifully made.
The lesson of [[Jacqueline Kennedy]] is precisely this: her elegance derived not from luxury but from the precision with which she dressed for the life she actually led — her official position, her individual physical type, the demands of modern public life. Self-knowledge, executed with discipline, is the principle behind the supreme exemplar.
The pitfall of the Third Principle is the wardrobe for the imagined sixth place — the fantasy purchase for the occasion that never comes. The elegant wardrobe is built for Tuesday.
- 01Photograph yourself in daylight, head to toe, in three of your most-worn outfits. Look honestly.
- 02Identify the three colours that flatter you most. Build outward from there.
- 03List the five places you actually spend your week. Dress for those — not for the imagined sixth.
- ×Dressing for the woman you wish you were.
- ×Following a trend that fights your figure.
- ×Buying for the holiday and not for the Tuesday.
- ×Imitating a style specific to another physical type.