The First Gentleman in Europe

For writer James Joyce, Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey is the first gentleman in Europe. This is because Odysseus has honour and perfect manners, and does not want to appear naked in front of the princess Nausicaa and her ladies-in-waiting.

It is right after a shipwreck, and Odysseus grabs branches and leaves, managing to appear before Nausicaa as dignified as a lord in Parliament.

For me, Odysseus is a gentleman for another reason: he does not hide his grief when his faithful dog dies. Odysseus spares a tear for Argus the hound, whom the women had left unkempt on the dung.

Homer's epics are full of beautiful women (and men). Homer's descriptions of women's beauty, hair and lovely skin are unforgettable. However, Homer does not shy away from the ugly or puzzling realities of the lives of those women -- some are slaves, widows of war, witches, Goddesses or mermaids.

Homer's epics are also full of beauty and cooking advice. 

Both women and men love a hot bath with essential oils. Massage with essential oils is a must. Meat is cooked over a roasting spit and served with a large portion of bread. The ideal breakfast is a large bowl of wheat mixed with wine and honey! Boiled milk is a must too. (This last from mythology. Zeus and Hermes drink a whole cooking pot of fresh boiled milk while guesting with a couple down on earth).

The message is clear. With these beauty and cooking rituals, you end up looking beautiful like a goddess or god, and feeling strong like a warrior!

Have It Your Way

Sandro Botticelli's Madonna of the Magnificat is one of the few paintings showing the Madonna in the act of writing.

The Madonna with pens, paper and writing is not a very popular subject. As Virginia Woolf rightly pointed out, women meet with difficulties when they love letters, writing and books.

Nowadays, this is gradually less true. After all, beauty is a form of writing.

I think that we use beauty rituals and tools to write our own beauty, to make our face even more beautiful than it is. I agree with the poet Charles Baudelaire, who said that make-up helps women achieve perfection, and even add my own adage: "make up helps women reach their own idea of perfection"! Yes!

This amazing photo by Carrie Mae Weems (from the Kitchen Table series) shows that beauty is a legacy going from one woman to another. The picture features three persons, not two: the mother, daughter, and the spectator, expected to take the third chair -- you, me, all women, Every Woman. 

I am not saying that all women should use make-up: I don't use any myself ("maybe that's why you admire the women who do so much!" my inner goddess whispers). What I am saying is that beauty is special for us all and something which can be fun for us all. As the poet John Keats has famously said, "beauty is truth, truth beauty".

Like the poet's saying, beauty can be viewed in many ways. And each woman can have her own! Her own way!

An A-Ha Moment

I saw this picture on a website the other day, and I loved it so much I just had to share! I saved the picture, naming it "Blonde Light".

As a friend said once, we are so fascinated by blonde hair because it resembles light around the face. Here is Kate Hudson, for me the prettiest woman on the planet.

In the Victorian era, the blonde woman was associated with female industry; the golden hair itself with the female arts of combing and weaving, ultimately with the art of story-telling itself.

Blonde hair continues to impress even when it is dyed.

A friend told me that, years ago, she had her hair dyed blonde -- a woman had been so impressed that she had asked to touch it. 
-"While your hair is the colour you have now". I answered. "Chestnut".
My friend is years older than me; I could be her daughter.
"No". She replied. "My hair now is white. I dye it chestnut".

I stared at her for a while. It was the first time I thought of our age difference, and that her hair might be white. She is right, I thought, her hair is white.

That was an a-ha moment for me. I realized that life has no age, and no colour, either. You can look younger, older, blonder, darker.

Praise be to the Goddess of Beauty for this! (Oh, and the Beauty Industry, too)...

Exactly Like

I am currently reading Venice, a travel book by Jan Morris. It is well-written and interesting, with historical detail and historical anecdotes.

I love Venice and, even more than going there again, I'd love to take part in the famous carnival!

I would dress up as a Victorian lady, complete with the corset, the bonnet plus ribbons, gloves and the crinoline.

I would also wear a parure, like Ginevra Fanshawe from Charlotte Bronte's Villette.

Ginevra Fanshawe is one of my favourite characters in literature -- she is beautiful, exuberant, sexy, coquettish, fun; she is the light to protagonist Lucy Snowe's darkness. Most of all, Ginevra is dressed amazingly well. You just love to read the descriptions of her clothes and costumes. Her fashion sense is among the most wonderful in the whole of literature!

Villette is a phantasmagoric novel. It is mysterious, puzzling, disturbing, it is fascinating and artsy, as well as exotic and tough.

Exactly like the Venice festive carnival.

Sewing Magic (Make Sexy Even Sexier)

One of my life's regrets is not becoming a seamstress and fashion designer. For me, sewing and fashion design are three-in-one: a job, a career and creative magic!

The dark side of the fashion industry is often discussed today; for the same theme in the 19th century look at Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Ruth.

The novel describes the hard-work, tough working conditions and poverty of the Victorian seamstress. Charles Dickens does the same in Nicholas Nickleby, when Kate Nickleby goes to work at the fashion house of Mrs Mantalini.

However, both Ruth Hilton and Kate Nickleby are young girls of amazing beauty -- indeed, the scenes where Gaskell describes Ruth's beauty are among the most wonderful of their kind in literature. The young seamstress is presented as talented, pretty and eager to work hard.

An inspiring portrait of the young seamstress and designer is done in the character of Valentine O'Neill in Scruples, the novel by Judith Krantz. ("This should have been your own career too!" My inner harpy wakes up to haunt me). Scruples is not one of my favourite novels, and the only reason it remains on my library shelf is for the information on the working of a fashion workshop contained inside.

I had a student colleague at University who could sew and design clothes, alter clothes she bought from stores, and did beautiful work with the needle. She was herself beautiful, and one of the most attractive women I have ever met. With a portable sewing machine and her sewing magic, she could make sexy clothes even sexier. She had this amazing ability to make a fine piece from any sort of plain cloth and --

I better stop here before my inner harpy wakes up to haunt me again!!!!!!!!

The Goddess of Haute Couture

One of my most valued possessions is Valerie Steele's book The Corset.

Here, Valerie Steele tells us all about the history of the corset and what it means in culture. In the book Bound to Please, another valued tome on my library shelf, Leigh Summers tells us about how women designers and women entrepreneurs created and produced corsets in the 19th century. Jean Fouquet painted the Virgin Mary in a corset.

Constricting though it was, and damaging to health, the corset allowed Victorian women to express their sexuality and frame their beauty, in an era which tried to repress female sexuality.

The corset continues to fascinate us today, in the work of many designers, most notably Jean Paul Gaultier's.

I think that Jean Paul Gaultier is, together with Karl Lagerfeld, among those people without whom the world would be less beautiful, less creative -- less fun.

Praise be to the Goddess of Haute Couture!

Give me Some Candy

One of the defining texts of my childhood is definitely Candy Candy, the well-known Japanese anime series. For those of you who are not familiar with Candy Candy, it is a Cinderella story, exciting and lovely, but with a twist. Candy (short for Candy-Candy) is an orphan girl, pretty and clever, but mistreated for her poverty and orphaned status. Candy is defined by goodness, bravery and a strong sense of honour. She risks her life to save Annie, her childhood friend, eventhough Annie shuns her after being adopted by a rich family. Candy is herself adopted by a rich and powerful family a couple of years later.

The twist comes in many ways. Anthony, Candy's childhood love and first boyfriend, dies tragically in an accident. Anthony's death is a trauma for many Candy Candy viewers and fans -- I have met adult people (women AND men) whose faces assume an expression of horror at the mere mention of Anthony's death.

There is more. One of Candy's beloved male friends dies at World War I and Terence, boyfriend number two, also faces darkness and a murky fate. The ending of the series is ambiguous and we do not really know whether Candy eventually finds happiness.

I have heard that the series is actually unfinished, because of copyright issues between the original writer, the scriptwriter(s) and the production companies. I don't know if this is true.

I have also discovered that the original writer, a Japanese lady, has written and published the Candy Candy novel, with a definitive (though still mysterious) ending. The novel exists only in Japanese, a language I sadly don't speak.

I can only pray to the Goddess of Romance books for a good translation to come out soon! 

Life's Coffee

I am at my local Costa Coffee writing my lecture notes, and I have just to write about a little scene.

A young couple are at a corner (not visible from where I am seated) with the boyfriend lying in the arms and on the bosom of the girlfriend. I thought, how cute! And how comfortable and happy he looks! (She looked happy too, and protective). I just had to write about it.

As usually, Costa is full -- friends, couples, a teenage musician working hard on his music sheets, me writing my lecture notes and, last but not least, my friends the baristas, patient, kind and harder working than us all.

Enjoy your coffee cup!

Keep Looking

I was so impressed today with Christian Louboutin's Princess creation! I have never seen anything so elegant, lovely or classy in the form of a shoe! Never, ever!

I wrote a comment at once, of course: all my dreams will come true the far off day when I will be able to afford Christian Louboutin!

And I mean it!

In Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian is a fan of Louboutin shoes, and buys Ana some pairs. Sadly, there is no Christian Grey in my life -- but I will keep looking.

Until I find my own Christian (and he has to really, really, REALLY resemble the original) I can only count the days for the opening of the film!

Lipstick Beauty (the year's last client)

For Italian fashion journalist and style writer Cinzia Felicetti, the perfect lipstick has to be Feux d' Automne by Orlane. It's no longer manufactured, and she is still looking for a replacement. For me, the perfect lipstick must be Clinique G7 Pinkberry. I felt so lucky to have found it again on Beauty Line this New Year's Eve -- buying it at about 7pm made me their last client for the year!

I find that the colour of the lipstick suits me wonderfully, but it is more, much more than this! G7 Pinkberry is perfect in every way: texture, durability, feel on the skin. It is also easy to apply and shape on the lips, without the need of pencil. With other lipsticks (which I also love) I often need to use a shaping pencil.

A second lipstick which is great for me is Rouge Dior 351 -- when I learnt that it is going out of production, I bought as many units as my tiny budget would permit. I also enjoy Lancome L' absolute nu 302.

Yet the Clinique G7 Pinkberry lipstick remains the winner: applying a bit of it on the lips can make better any day!