Grace, Imagination, and the Pursuit of a Snag-Free Existence

I once left a wedding reception early because I’d punched hideous hole in my dark hose, and, for reasons I now forget, bare legs were not a viable option. A more graceful guest would have tucked a spare pair into her handbag or worn something more resilient. Glamour requires careful planning, or sturdier materials. Either way, you appear to exist in a snag-free state of being.

Simone de Beauvoir disapproved of the pursuit of such polish. Elegance, she believed, held women in bondage, robbing them of their humanity.

Accidents will happen; wine is spilled on her dress, a cigarette burns it; this marks the disappearance of the luxurious and festive creature who bore herself with smiling pride into the ballroom, for she now assumes the serious and severe look of the housekeeper; it becomes all at once evident that her toilette was not a set piece like fireworks, a transient burst of splendor, intended for the lavish illumination of a moment. It is rather a rich possession, capital goods, an investment; it has meant sacrifice; its loss is a real disaster. Spots, tears, botched dressmaking, bad hair-dos are catastrophes still more serious than a burnt roast or a broken vase, for not only does the woman of fashion project herself into things, she has chosen to make herself a thing. (The Second Sex)

Even accounting for the regimentation of mid-century fashion and mid-century women’s roles, de Beauvoir is too harsh. A man’s suit is also a capital good—literally, an investment used to produce income—and a single spot can spoil a necktie. Women of fashion are not the only people who dress for the eyes of others. Everyone does so, knowingly or not. In condemning the woman of fashion, de Beauvoir partakes of the intellectual’s illusion that human beings can divorce mind from body.

But grace, polish, and sprezzatura are indeed difficult and unnatural. They defy decay, entropy, gravity, and time—and pretend to do so effortlessly. Such defiance can never be more than a “transient burst.” Yet, whether captured by an artist or conjured in the mind’s eye, the image of that ideal moment invites us to inhabit it. To project ourselves into things is to express the human desire to transcend our circumstances. The woman of fashion turns herself not into a generic “thing” but a cultural artifact, a work of art.

 ["Snagged" photo by Flickr user Carol Young, used with permission.]