Whatever Happened to Poise and Etiquette? I Know.......By Julianna Rowe
There were books written years ago about something called poise. Not Poise, the bladder-leak pad. Good grief. Although at some stage of my life, apparently both definitions may become relevant.
I mean poise. There was a time when both women and men were expected to know how to conduct themselves. Women were taught how to walk, sit and carry themselves with grace. Men were taught how to dress properly, escort a lady, remove a hat, offer a chair and behave like gentlemen. Everybody was expected to know how to set a table, make an introduction, write a thank-you note and carry on a conversation without offending half the room. Some of those rules were ridiculous, some were unfair and some deserved to disappear, but mixed in with all that old-fashioned fussiness were manners, consideration and respect for other people.
We sure have come a long way from poise and etiquette. That old pendulum didn't just swing. It broke loose from the clock and went sailing through the living-room window.
There was certainly plenty wrong with the old rules. Women were expected to be pretty, agreeable and properly dressed while men were allowed considerably more freedom to be loud, rumpled and occasionally useless. I am not campaigning for the return of girdles, white gloves at the grocery store or women pretending they don't have opinions. But did we have to throw everything out? Somewhere between white gloves and pajama pants at Walmart, couldn't we have stopped at pants that don't drag on the floor, shuffling flip flops?
I miss beautiful clothes, and I don't necessarily mean expensive clothes because there is a difference. I miss garments that looked as though somebody cared when they made them and somebody else cared when they put them on. I remember ruffles and bows, polka-dot blouses, beautifully tailored skirts, dresses that moved when a woman walked and coats trimmed with fur that swayed behind her. There were scarves tied just so, gloves chosen for the occasion, stockings without runs and shoes that were actually polished. A woman could walk into a restaurant smelling faintly of perfume and looking as though getting dressed had been part of the evening rather than an annoying obstacle standing between her and dinner.
There was also the wonderful feel of good fabric. Silk felt like silk and wool felt substantial. A lined coat slipped over your clothing differently from something pulled off a discount rack and expected to survive until Thursday. Clothing had seams and darts and linings and buttons that were selected rather than fired onto the garment by industrial artillery.
And men! There was something about a man in a properly fitted suit and tie. His trousers fit his waist, his shirt was pressed, his shoes were polished and, with any luck, his underwear remained privileged information. Of course, these days when I see a man in an especially expensive suit, I immediately wonder whether he's about to explain an investment opportunity that will eventually require federal investigators.
We've apparently reached an agreement between the sexes. Women can expose most of their breasts and men can wear their pants somewhere around their knees. Fair is fair, I suppose. If she gets cleavage, he gets butt crack. Equality has finally arrived.
Sometimes I see Indian women wearing magnificent saris and formal garments, with rich fabrics draped beautifully around them, embroidery, silk and gorgeous jewelry. I want to reach out just to feel the material. Not etiquette at all! The colors can be magnificent, the workmanship intricate. Then I turn and near the banana's is a person with pajama's on.
There is something wonderful about clothing that says, this occasion matters enough for me to make an effort.
Maybe effort is what I am really missing, because poise was never only about clothing. Does anybody remember setting a table? Forks went on the left, knife and spoon on the right, drinking glass above the knife and the napkin properly placed. Then came the cup and saucer, the bread-and-butter plate and enough additional silverware to make a child wonder whether dinner required an owner's manual. But we learned it.
We learned to put our napkin in our lap, not chew with our mouths open, say please and thank you, and push in our chairs when we left the table. We learned that when someone introduced you, you acknowledged the other person instead of continuing to stare at whatever electronic device might have occupied our hands had somebody invented one yet.
A gentleman walking beside a lady took the side nearest the street, an old custom meant to place him between her and whatever might come from the roadway. He opened a door, helped with a coat and sometimes pulled out a chair. A woman didn't need him to do those things because she was incapable of operating a door or locating a chair. The gesture said, I am aware that you are here, and your comfort matters to me.
There was romance tucked inside some of those rituals. There was consideration and the understanding that how you behaved affected the person beside you. Women were taught to stand upright, keep their shoulders back and their heads up, and to walk gracefully instead of shuffling along as though their feet had been issued separately from the rest of their bodies.
And no, I do not glide through Costco like Grace Kelly. I own flannel shirts and big clunky boots. I even own a few cheap dresses manufactured somewhere far away by people who probably cannot believe what Americans are willing to wear. But I do not shuffle through the grocery store.
Funerals may be one of the places where I notice the change most. There was a time when what you wore to a funeral acknowledged the solemnity of the occasion. Men wore suits or at least dress trousers, women wore dresses or other subdued clothing, and people made an effort because somebody had died and a family was grieving. Nobody needed to arrive dressed for the Queen's funeral, but the clothing quietly said, I understand that today is not about me. Now almost anything goes, and perhaps that is freedom, but sometimes I wonder whether we lost a little ceremony along with all those rules.
Every generation gains something and loses something, and nostalgia has a sneaky habit of remembering the satin while forgetting the girdles. These days even spanks are out. Women gained freedoms that should never be surrendered, and men gained freedom from plenty of pointless rules themselves. I don't need a man in a three-piece suit to eat mashed potatoes, and I don't need white gloves to buy bananas.
What I miss is the sense that presentation could be a form of respect for an occasion, for the people around you and maybe a little respect for yourself. We've become wonderfully casual, and much of that is good. We can wear sneakers almost anywhere. Women aren't imprisoned by clothing rules that once dictated everything from skirt length to whether a lady could wear trousers. Those are freedoms worth keeping, but perhaps freedom and elegance were never enemies.
The pendulum swung, and perhaps it needed to. I was lucky enough to experience some of what existed on both sides of its arc. The glamour and the freedom, the romance and the independence, the rules and the rebellion. I own the flannel, the boots and the cheap dresses, but I still like dressing up. I still push in my chair, say thank you and walk through the grocery store with my head up.
Then, while writing this, I went looking for a photo to post with this article. I found old books about poise and etiquette. And do you know what else I found? Women. Women. Women. How a woman should sit, walk, dress, speak. and behave. Apparently civilization itself rested on whether some woman remembered to keep her knees together while the men went about their business.
Suddenly I understood something.
No wonder women ended up in boots and flannel.
The Happy News Lady π
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