Developing Your Easy and Elegant Eye

(Apres mois, le deluge.)
There is an excellent bit of advice posted on the also very excellent blog “The Peak of Chic” today. The subject is Bunny Williams’ advice on training your eye. It is virtualy identical to the advice given by Letitia Baldridge, who was Mrs. J.F. Kennedy’s social secretary. It boils down to this: look at more stuff.

But not just any stuff — exquisite stuff.

Learn to separate the wheat from the chaff by leafing through the major magazines on the subject with which you are fascinated.(“Q”, “Town and Country”, “The Magazine Antiques”, and “House and Garden” are a few in my stack.) Visit the very best stores, antique shops and museums in your area. And, of course, there is no shortage of on-line resources that are excellent places to begin your research.

I will also say, by way of warning, that if your interest lies in classic men’s clothing, ignore most of the magazines out there. They are concerned with fashion, not style. And fashion, after a certain age, can degenerate into costume. Just take a look at your high school pictures and try to imagine wearing that today.

Instead look to the classic films with Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, William Powell, and the rest of the pantheon. American history buff? Stop with JFK.