Authors: Simone de Beauvoir
As we have said, by adorning herself, woman is akin to nature, while attesting to nature’s need for artifice; she becomes flower and jewel for man and for herself as well.
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Before giving him rippling water or the soft warmth of furs, she takes them for herself. More intimately than her knickknacks, rugs, cushions, and bouquets, she prizes feathers, pearls, brocade, and silks that she mingles with her flesh; their shimmer and their gentle contact compensate for the harshness of the erotic universe that is her lot: the more her sensuality is unsatiated, the more importance she gives to it. If many lesbians dress in a masculine way, it is not only out of imitation of males and defiance of society: they do not need the caresses of velvet and satin, because they grasp such passive qualities on a feminine body.
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The woman given to the harsh masculine embrace—even if she savors it and even more if she gets no pleasure from it—can embrace no carnal prey other than her own body: she perfumes it to change it into a flower, and the shine of the diamonds she puts around her neck is no different from that of
her skin; in order to possess them, she identifies with all the riches of the world. She covets not only sensual treasures but sometimes also sentimental values and ideals. This jewel is a souvenir; that one is a symbol. Some women make themselves bouquets, aviaries; others are museums and still others hieroglyphs. Georgette Leblanc tells us in her memoirs, evoking her youth:
I was always dressed like a painting. I walked around in van Eyck, in an allegory of Rubens, or in the Virgin of Memling. I still see myself crossing a street in Brussels one winter day in a dress of amethyst velvet embellished with old silver binding taken from some tunic. Dragging insouciantly my long train behind me, I was conscientiously sweeping the pavement. My folly of yellow fur framed my blond hair, but the most unusual thing was the diamond placed on the frontlet on my forehead. Why all this? Simply because it pleased me, and so I thought I was living outside of all convention. The more I was laughed at as I went by, the more extravagant my burlesque inventions. I would have been ashamed to change anything in my appearance just because I was being mocked. That would have seemed to me to be a degrading capitulation … At home it was something else again. The angels of Gozzoli, Fra Angelico, Burne-Jones, and Watts were my models. I was always attired in azure and aurora; my flowing dresses spread out in manifold trains around me.
The best examples of this magical appropriation of the universe are found in mental institutions. A woman who does not control her love for precious objects and symbols forgets her own appearance and risks dressing outlandishly. The very little girl thus sees in dressing a disguise that changes her into a fairy, a queen, a flower; she thinks she is beautiful as soon as she is laden with garlands and ribbons because she identifies with these flashy clothes; charmed by the color of a piece of material, the naive young girl does not notice the wan complexion it gives her; one also finds this excessive bad taste in women artists or intellectuals more fascinated by the outside world than conscious of their own appearance: infatuated by these old materials and antique jewels, they delight in conjuring up China or the Middle Ages and give the mirror no more than a cursory or passing glance. It is sometimes surprising to see the strange getups elderly women like: tiaras, lace, bright dresses, and extravagant necklaces unfortunately draw attention to their ravaged features. Now that they have given up
seduction, clothes often become once again a gratuitous game for them as in their childhood. An elegant woman by contrast can seek sensual or aesthetic pleasures in her clothes if need be, but she must reconcile them in harmony with her image: the color of her dress will flatter her complexion, the cut will emphasize or improve her figure; arrayed, she complaisantly cherishes her adorned self and not the objects that adorn her.
Dressing is not only adornment: it expresses, as we have said, woman’s social situation. Only the prostitute whose function is exclusively that of a sex object displays herself exclusively in this light; in the past it was her saffron hair and the flowers that dotted her dress; today it is her high heels, skimpy satin, harsh makeup, and heavy perfume that are the signature of her profession. Any other woman is criticized for dressing “like a strumpet.” Her erotic qualities are integrated into social life and can only appear in this toned-down form. But it must be emphasized that decency does not mean dressing with strict modesty. A woman who teases male desire too blatantly is considered vulgar; but a woman who is seen to repudiate this is disreputable as well: she is seen as wanting to look like a man: she’s a lesbian; or to single herself out: she’s an eccentric; refusing her role as object, she defies society: she’s an anarchist. If she simply does not want to be noticed, she must still conserve her femininity. Custom dictates the compromise between exhibitionism and modesty; sometimes it is the neckline and sometimes the ankle that the “virtuous woman” must hide; sometimes the young girl has the right to highlight her charms so as to attract suitors, while the married woman gives up all adornment: such is the usage in many peasant civilizations; sometimes young girls have to dress in flowing clothes of baby colors and modest cut, while their elders are allowed tight-fitting dresses, heavy material, rich hues, and daring cuts; on a sixteen-year-old, black stands out because the rule at that age is not to wear it.
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One must, of course, conform to these laws; but in any case, and even in the most austere circles, woman’s sexual attributes will be emphasized: the pastor’s wife curls her hair, wears some makeup, is discreetly fashion-conscious, indicating through the attention to her physical charm that she accepts her female role. This integration of eroticism into social life is particularly obvious in the “evening gown.” To mark a social gathering, that is, luxury and waste, these dresses must be costly and delicate, they must be as uncomfortable as possible; skirts are long and so wide or so complicated
that they impede walking; under the jewels, ruffles, sequins, flowers, feathers, and false hair, woman is changed into a flesh-doll; even this flesh is exposed; just as flowers bloom gratuitously, the woman displays her shoulders, back, bosom; except in orgies, the man must not indicate that he covets her: he only has the right to looks and the embraces of the dance; but he can take delight in being the king of a world of such tender treasures. From one man to another, the festivity takes on the appearance of a potlatch; each of them gives the vision of this body that is his property to all the others as a gift. In her evening dress, the woman is disguised as woman for all the males’ pleasure and the pride of her owner.
This social significance of the toilette allows woman to express her attitude to society by the way she dresses; subject to the established order, she confers on herself a discreet and tasteful personality; many nuances are possible: she will make herself fragile, childlike, mysterious, candid, austere, gay, poised, a little daring, self-effacing, as she chooses. Or, on the contrary, she will affirm her rejection of conventions by her originality. It is striking that in many novels the “liberated” woman distinguishes herself by an audacity in dressing that emphasizes her character as sex object, and thus of dependence: so in Edith Wharton’s
The Age of Innocence
, the young divorced woman with an adventuresome past and a bold heart is first presented with a plunging décolletage; the whiff of scandal she provokes becomes the tangible reflection of her scorn for conformity. Thus the young girl will enjoy dressing as a woman, the older woman as a little girl, the courtesan as a sophisticated woman of the world, and the woman of the world as a vamp. Even if every woman dresses according to her status, there is still play in it. Artifice like art is situated in the imagination. Not only do girdle, bra, hair dyes, and makeup disguise body and face; but as soon as she is “dressed up,” the least sophisticated woman is not concerned with perception: she is like a painting, a statue, like an actor on stage, an analogon through which is suggested an absent subject who is her character but is not she. It is this confusion with an unreal object—necessary, perfect like a hero in a novel, like a portrait or a bust—that flatters her; she strives to alienate herself in it and so to appear frozen, justified to herself.
Page by page we see Marie Bashkirtseff in
Ecrits intimes
(Intimate Writings) endlessly remaking her image. She does not spare us any of her dresses: for each new outfit, she believes she is an other and she adores herself anew:
I took one of Mama’s great shawls, I made a slit for my head, and I sewed up the two sides. This shawl that falls in classic folds gives me an Oriental, biblical, strange look.
I go to the Laferrières’, and in just three hours Caroline makes me a dress in which I look as if I’m enveloped in a cloud. This is a piece of English crepe that she drapes over me, making me thin, elegant, and long.
Enveloped in a warm wool dress hanging in harmonious folds, a character out of Lefebvre who knows so well how to draw these lithe and young bodies in modest fabrics.
This refrain is repeated day after day: “I was charming in black … In gray, I was charming … I was in white, charming.”
Mme de Noailles, who also accorded much importance to her dress, speaks sadly in her
Memoirs
of the crisis of a failed dress:
I loved the vividness of the colours, their daring contrast, a dress seemed like a landscape, the beginning of adventure. Just as I was putting on the dress made by unsure hands, I suffered from all the defects I saw.
If the toilette has so much importance for many women, it is because they are under the illusion that it provides them both with the world and with their own self. A German novel,
The Artificial Silk Girl
,
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tells the story of a poor girl’s passion for a vair coat; sensually she loved the caressing warmth of it, the furry tenderness; in precious skins it is her transfigured self she cherishes; she finally possesses the beauty of the world she had never embraced and the radiant destiny that had never been hers:
And then I saw a coat hanging from a hook, a fur so soft, so smooth, so tender, so gray, so shy: I felt like kissing it I loved it so much. It looked like consolation and All Saints’ Day and total safety, like the sky. It was genuine vair. Silently, I took off my raincoat and put on the vair. This fur was like a diamond on my skin that loved it and what one loves, one doesn’t give it back once one has it. Inside, a Moroccan crepe lining, pure silk, with hand embroidery. The coat enveloped me and spoke more than I to Hubert’s heart … I am so elegant in this fur. It is like the rare man who would make me precious through his love for me. This coat wants me and I want it: we have each other.
As woman is an object, it is obvious that how she is adorned and dressed affects her intrinsic value. It is not pure frivolousness for her to attach so much importance to silk stockings, gloves, and a hat: keeping her rank is an imperious obligation. In America, a great part of the working woman’s budget is devoted to beauty care and clothes; in France, this expense is lighter; nevertheless, a woman is all the more respected if she “presents well”; the more she needs to find work, the more useful it is to look well-off: elegance is a weapon, a sign, a banner of respect, a letter of recommendation.
It is a servitude; the values it confers have a price; they sometimes have such a high price that a detective catches a socialite or an actress shoplifting perfumes, silk stockings, or underwear. Many women prostitute themselves or “get help” in order to keep themselves well dressed; it is their clothes that determine their need for money. Being well dressed also requires time and care; it is a chore that is sometimes a source of positive joy: in this area there is also the “discovery of hidden treasures,” trades, ruses, arrangements, and invention; a clever woman can even be creative. Showroom days—especially the sales—are frenetic adventures. A new dress is a celebration in itself. Makeup and hair are substitutes for a work of art. Today, more than before, woman knows the joys of shaping her body by sports, gymnastics, swimming, massage, and diets;
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she decides on her weight, her figure, and her complexion; modern beauty treatments allow her to combine beauty and activity: she has the right to toned muscles, she refuses to put on weight; in physical culture, she affirms herself as subject; this gives her a kind of liberation from her contingent flesh; but this liberation easily lapses back into dependence. The Hollywood star triumphs over nature: but she finds herself a passive object in the producer’s hands.
Next to these victories in which woman rightly takes delight, taking care of one’s appearance implies—like household tasks—a fight against time, because her body too is an object eroded by time. Colette Audry describes this fight, comparable to the one the housewife engages against dust:
Already it was no longer the compact flesh of youth; along her arms and thighs the pattern of her muscles showed through a layer of fat and slightly flabby skin. Upset, she once again changed her schedule:
her day would begin with half an hour of gymnastics and in the evening, before getting into bed, a quarter of an hour of massage. She took to reading medical books and fashion magazines, to watching her waistline. She prepared fruit juices, took a laxative from time to time, and did the dishes with rubber gloves. Her two concerns—rejuvenating her body and refurbishing her home—finally became one so that one day she would reach a kind of steadiness, a kind of dead center … the world would be as if stopped, suspended outside of aging and decay … At the swimming pool, she now took serious lessons to improve her style, and the beauty magazines kept her breathless with infinitely renewed recipes. Ginger Rogers confides to us: “I brush my hair one hundred strokes every morning, it takes exactly two and a half minutes and I have silky hair …” How to get thinner ankles: stand on your toes every day, thirty times in a row, without putting your heels down, this exercise only takes a minute; what is a minute in a day? Another time it is an oil bath for nails, lemon paste for hands, crushed strawberries on cheeks.
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