Tiffany’s Table Manners…by Robe.
(click photos for captions)
Walter Hoving took Tiffany from the brink of bankruptcy in 1955 and all-but-reinvented it as the company that you know today. Among other things, Hoving was the fellow who brought Elsa Peretti, Jean Schlumberger and Angela Cummings to design for Tiffany. It was also Hoving who brought Gene Moore to design Tiffany’s windows: the echoes of which are still used by the company today.
Hoving didn’t bother trying to ascertain the tastes of the public. Instead, he told the public what its tastes should be: they should be Tiffany’s tastes. By creating tastes, Tiffany could control the market on taste. It’s a tried and true business model: never ask what the public wants. Tell them what they want. Then sell it to them. You’ll always win.
Like all good leaders, Hoving had his quirks. He refused to allow clients who were rude to salespeople to open charge accounts. He refused to design or sell men’s diamond rings. He famously refused President Kennedy a discount, pointing to a picture of Mary Lincoln in a strand of Tiffany pearls and saying, “Well, President Lincoln didn’t receive one.” He sealed all his deals with a handshake: his word was iron.
He was, indeed, one of the last of the true gentlemen in business.
In 1961, Hoving wrote a little book entitled Tiffany’s Table Manners For Teenagers. It’s a slim volume, simply illustrated, that has taught proper table etiquette to generations of young people. According to Columbia University professor Shamus Khan, it was (and still may be) issued to underclassmen by older students as an ultra WASPy form of etiquette hazing at the prestigious St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. Underclassmen were expected to memorize it and recite it as catechism when asked.
There are some surprising things to be learned. Asparagus, for example, is to be eaten with the fingers unless the stalks are too long. His tone is corrective, but kind…
“Above all, be natural…Just be yourself.”
“Don’t stick your elbow out and raise your whole arm like a derrick.”
“Do not hold the knife and fork in this position when you are talking. It looks unattractive and belligerent.”
In all, it’s a wise and delightful little book written at a time when there was a much wider sense of propriety and decorum.
Not surprisingly, most of the people I know own a copy or have owned a copy. And those I know who haven’t were fortunate enough to have had parents and grandparents whose raised eyebrows were more than enough to correct any bad habits being formed before the fish course emerged from the kitchen.
These things may seem antiquated, quaint, or even archaic in an age where manners seem to call more attention to yourself than rudeness does, but it is my humble assertion that these things—good habits, taught early—are part of what holds society together. Manners exist not to elevate ourselves above others, but rather to make others around us feel at ease. We don’t slurp our soup because it might annoy someone else. We keep our elbows in for our neighbors sake. Hoving never comes across as condescending or snobbish: indeed, he specifically frowns upon “putting on airs.” The idea, of course, is classically Tiffany: not to fall into the trap of what’s modern or popular, but always to return to what is classic, what is tried, and what is always considered to be in good taste.
That is the essence of modern manners: a hallmark of every Robe and Slippers Girl.
Bon appetit!
Robe
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Daphne Guinness - Tatler Hong Kong March 2012.
Daphne Guinness is known for her opulent style, and for the March 2012 issue of Tatler Hong Kong, there is certainly no exception. Photographed by Markus + Indrani and styled by GK Reid, Daphne surrounds herself in luxury and wears dazzling dresses and gowns from the likes of Chanel Haute Couture, Genghis Khan, and Azzedine Alaia. This photograph is one of the most powerful shots I have ever seen. Her pose is so fierce and the styling and setting is spot-on. Watch the behind the scenes video by clicking here.
Photo: © Tatler Hong Kong
#RSGMusic: At Midnight We Rage
Happy Friday my darlings!
As we gear up to rage for the weekend, I thought I’d give you the best of what’s been playing through my speakers non-stop this week to help you prepare to get funky.
Download The Duchess Weekend Warmup 3.30
We start off with probably the quirkiest tune of the bunch—a dubstep remix of the Harry Potter suite. I know, I know, but give it a shot, I promise that you won’t be disappointed. The movies and books that are so beloved by the generation creating the dance music revolution are best depicted in this track.
We move next to…
If you saw Skrillex over the summer you may have heard him drop some very rough cuts of this one, but he dropped this tasty vacaytastic morsel on us at Ultra and I must say it’s impossible not to enjoy this track. It combines the best of the reggae influence on dance music with the creation of moombathon and Skrillex’s classic barrier braking dubstep trademarks.
I can’t think of a better Springtime anthem than this one at the moment. If you’re someone who grew up with Whitney’s powerful dance vocals, then you can understand why. It conveys all of the hope that comes with the rebirth of our music festival attire and reminds us not to forget the divalicious mavens who paved the way for those ladies who are taking dance music by storm.
Next: I will be the first to admit that while I was beginning to build my dance library as a little Duchess, I also had quite the Fall Out Boy collection. This remix makes the track come alive again with a new air of danceability. It’s also great for those friends you may be driving/dancing/out with that aren’t familiar with the EDM scene because they can still sing along.
Smoothly transition over to another classic track that’s been completely re-worked to give you exactly the blast from the past that you may be craving with an injection of fresh beats for your ever changing musical needs.
We leave things with the best rework of a Ray Charles tune I’ve heard in a long time, or, you know, ever, as far as reworking him for a more EDM centered crowd is concerned. It keeps the classic bits classic and infuses just the right amount of vacay-approved electric funk where it belongs.
Duchess out…
RSGArt: Decalcomania
Untitled, André Breton (French, 1896-1966)
Decalcomania: From the french décalcomanie, is a decorative technique by which engravings and prints may be transferred to pottery or other materials.
Invented in England around 1750, the technique was imported to the United States by 1865. Invention of the technique has been attributed to Simon François Ravenet, a French engraver who later moved to England where he perfected the process he called “decalquer” or “copy by tracing”.
The first known use of the French term décalcomanie is in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Eleanor’s Victory (1863), and was soon followed by the English decalcomania in an 1865 trade show catalog. Becoming popular during the ceramic transfer craze of the mid-1870s, today the shortened version of this term is Decal.
Untitled Oscar Domínguez (French, 1906-1957)
Oscar Domínguez took up the technique in 1936. He referred to his work as “decalcomania with no preconceived object” and used gouache spread thinly on a sheet of paper or other surface (glass has been used as well). This is then pressed onto another surface (the ‘canvas’). Originally, Domínguez used only black gouache; colors later made an appearance.
Alice in 1941 Max Ernst (French, born Germany. 1891-1976)
Other practitioners of decalcomania include Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer, and Remedios Varo.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, King Features Syndicate marketed a set of decalcomania works bearing full-color pictures of characters from their comic strips including Flash Gordon, the Katzenjammer Kids and Dagwood Blumsted. They were of course intended for an audience of young children who may have difficulty pronouncing or reading the word “decalcomania” so they were marketed as “Cockamamies”, a deliberate mispronunciation of that word which is used to describe something weird, wacky, strange, or unusual.
The production of decalcomanias has not been confined to just art; At Yale, finger paint decalcomanias have been analyzed for their tendency to generate fractals when the process is repeated several times on the same paper.
Untitled (Woman’s Profile) Marcel Jean (French, 1900-1993), On View at the MoMA in Manhattan.
What makes this process so visually intriguing is that it is unlike anything else that appears within the surrealism movement—it is wacky and strange and unusual, but so is humanity. And isn’t that what art’s about? Connecting with the very sensual, tactile, and strangest parts of human nature. Decalcomania does just that and I, for one, am fascinated by the textures and movement it creates and the emotion it tends to illicit form its viewers. If you take a look at Marcel Jean’s version of a woman’s profile, it takes only a moment to figure out exactly what it is. At first glance it appears to be only a tangle of cells—the basic building blocks of humankind. And that’s what modern art seeks to explore: the boundaries between real and imaginary and how they play into our very origin.
