Individuality

I just finished reading, The Gospel According to Coco Chanel, by Karen Karbo.  Have you read it?

I've gone overboard on Chanel lately.  First, Axel Madsen's book, then Janet Wallach, followed by the recent Chanel movies, Coco Before Chanel with Audrey Tatou and Coco Chanel starring Shirley Maclaine.  I would be interested in knowing if anyone else does that.  One year, I read the whole Jack Aubrey-Stephen Maturin (Master and Commander) series by Patrick O'Brian.  Another, I read the James Bond series by Ian Flemming, and then watched each corresponding movie after reading the book.  I've had a Jackie Kennedy phase and a physics String-theory phase.  

If you love a good mystery, I highly recommend the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout.  33 novels written from 1934 to 1974, and often acclaimed as the best mystery series of the century. 

My interests are either charmingly diverse, or all over the map, depending on your perspective.  

I prefer to think of people as either divers or snorkelers.  Snorkelers have almost unlimited interests.  We like to float along exploring until something captures our attention, whereupon we will immerse ourselves until our curiosity is fully satisfied and then move on to the next fascinating subject.  We tend to know something about a lot of things.  

Divers, on the other hand, are the virtuosos.  They tend to have a single intense and passionate interest for much of their lives.  They dive deeply into their subject and generally become the world's foremost expert on the topic.    

  

But I digress.  Interesting that Chanel and Diana Vreeland

and Georgia O'Keefe, all women born near the turn of the 20th century, managed to be successful while sticking to their beliefs, dressing as they pleased, loving whom they chose,

and painting what they darn-well wanted.

And they did it at a time when that sort of individuality in women was roundly discouraged.

Bette Davis

In “How to Hepburn” Karen Karbo says of the iconic Golden Age Hollywood stars, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Greta Garbo,

Greta Garbo

"They all made it their business to be one of a kind, to strive to be in no one else's category but their own. How different from today.  We are all alleged non-conformists, with our individual playlists, our sassy bumper stickers, small-of-the- back tattoos, and pierced parts.  I'm always reminded of the great scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian. Brian tells his followers, "You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!" And the crowd recites, "Yes, we're all individuals!" And one lone voice in the crowd pipes up in a cockney accent, "I'm not!"

Diana Vreeland's sometimes practical, sometimes outlandish advice in her Why Don't You? column for Vogue, still inspires us in 2011.

Why Don't You...

… have a yellow satin bed spread made, entirely quilted in butterflies?

… have a private staircase from your bedroom to the library with a needlework carpet with notes of music worked on each step—the whole spelling your favorite tune?

… cover a big cork bulletin board in bright pink felt, banded with bamboo, and pin with colored thumb-tacks all your various enthusiasms as your life varies from week to week?

… wear, like the Duchess of Kent, three enormous diamond stars arranged in your hair in front?

... have a room done up in every color green? This will take months, years, to collect, but it will be delightful—a melange of plants, green glass, green porcelains, and furniture covered in sad greens, gay greens, clear, faded, and poison greens?

... bring back from Central Europe a huge white baroque porcelain stove to stand in your front hall?

... wear violet velvet mittens with everything?

... have an elk-hide trunk for the back of your car? Hermès of Paris will make this.


... have your cigarettes stamped with a personal insignia?

The point wasn't necessarily to do all of these things, the point was to spark creativity, to think beyond average living, mundane dressing, pedestrian decor.  Diana was the "ugly duckling" raised among a family of swans.  She discovered early on that the way to have a wonderful life, is to fully inhabit your own life and embrace every contradictory quality you have.

It is said that Katharine Hepburn took up jogging at age 71 with Greta Garbo, who was then 73.  For several years she wore the lining of a jacket as her coat.  Ms. Hepburn loved pants, and being outdoors, hated makeup and eating in front of people.  She was a potpourri of indiosyncrasies, as we all are, and because she embraced them, it was impossible to imitate her.  Great inspiration for decorating ourselves or our homes.