Connecting the Dots

I didn’t have a chance to post yesterday, but there are several thoughts that I am working on. Purely for organizational purposes, I am going to try to alternate between posts on political and other topics. Believe it or not, I actually listen to your feedback and though I can only write about those subjects that are of interest, it seems like there is a pretty even split amongst the readership in what you want to see. That suits me perfectly as I enjoy being both political and silly. Being that it is a weekend, I will be offering a more playful entry.

I have been having a number of conversations lately about looks and fashion. I know that I spend a fair amount of time criticizing what I don’t like, and I felt it would be fair to talk about what does my capture my fickle attention. It might just be that I am a history buff, but I always felt that people used to carry themselves with more class in earlier generations. If you’ve ever seen old footage from baseball games from the fifties, you’ll notice how everyone dressed in their Sunday best for a trip to the ballpark, and I have always appreciated how that simpler time reflected an elegance we lack.

Fully cognizant of the hypocrisy of my lament, as I sit here in a sleeveless t-shirt and athletic shorts, I find myself especially captivated by older movies and the female leads of that time. As a small aside, I think my favorite actress might be Grace Kelly who was truly suited to become a princess with the timeless style and elegance that embodied her every action. While we have gained much through individual expression and it is both good and novel that people feel free to display themselves in so many distinctive ways, it has never compared for me to those leading ladies of the silver screen, even if they were silhouetted in black and white.

Glamour - 1950's style

To make this more specific, I have been looking at the difference in make-up back then compared to what women wear today. I notice their thin eyebrows, carefully painted and arched to draw attention. The pale blush highlights the eyes and the radiant hair. The full red lips hint at what a gentleman, with long effort and decent manners, might yet earn for himself. There is nothing trashy about the look, no blatant seduction, and it isn’t required. They seemed to understand that the mystique of a woman is not in what she hides underneath, but in what she shows directly in front of you.

Naturally, women are just as attractive today as they were back then.  I think our celebrities are much less so, but I do not know for certain if that is because of a ruthless tabloid media that strips aside the glorious illusions we crave, or because we celebrate something else.  Our world struggles to find beauty and to identify things as beautiful because we are too aware of our own prejudices, and therefore we decide nothing except a celebration of everything, and therefore, of nothing.

The juxtaposition becomes stranger when you consider that we have styles constantly come and go to show there are different ideas about what is attractive, and yet we create and transform these with simple ease.  It makes for great discussion, but I think we have lost something timeless, and that is in the beauty of forms.  I like women from the forties and fifties not because they have more to offer, but because they seem to know how to accentuate their curves, and subtly let their bodies and quiet knowing smiles do all the talking.

My preferences have little weight beyond the confines of these electronic walls, but I really wish to make a suggestion:  less is more.  I find so many people who throw about their features, especially their body parts (men as well), thinking that makes them sexy:  It doesn’t.  People forget that allure comes from intrigue, from the stimulation of the mind about what is both seen and unseen, from the interplay of desires between two people, and in waiting.  I think, were we to reclaim some of that world we have lost, we might find a better balance between the lust we see today and the romance they retained back then.  After all, sometimes the strongest chains are made of silk.