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| False eyelashes, too much eye shadow = un-chic. |
Everyone wants to look expensive and well put together (or they should!) and pourquoi? There is authority, respect, beauty and poise in looking inimitable; having the appearance of a class act. We remember the class acts, they emit something nostalgic in us; a yearning perhaps for more formal and traditional times where being a “lady” and a “gentleman” really meant something. There was mystery and fantasy and allure.
Princess Ivana Pignatelli is the internationally celebrated beauty behind the “Modern Princess” brand and author of The Modern Princess: A Simple Guide to Pregnancy & Baby's First Year. Along with other royal mothers—Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, and Princess Letizia of Asturias—she has embraced a more cosmopolitan and hands-on approach to majestic motherhood. The tech-savvy businesswoman, whose fairy-tale wedding to an Italian prince—Prince Adriano Pignatelli Aragona Cortes—placed her among the who’s who of the global elite, is now the chic girl’s guide to pregnancy and child rearing. UPG turns to this Modern Princess for some much needed maternal advice.
If the handsome face, big brown eyes, or perfectly tousled mane doesn’t melt you, then being led by the hand—by private appointment of course—into a legendary palace of rare and precious gems will. Emily Jerome, of Latest Revival, flawlessly describes Siddharth Kasliwal’s splendid inheritance, “The Gem Palace in Jaipur, India is like a mythical setting for a James Bond heist. Uncut rubies cascade from cheesecloth bags, as if a dime a dozen. Sapphires, diamonds, emeralds—the size of golf balls—flood the show tables, begging to glisten on a body part. Antique rings open to reveal wells once filled with poison. Diamonds encrusted into glittering turtles form a clutch purse.” What girl’s heart wouldn’t skip a beat?
"There is an expression in France; avoir du chien. It means to be sexy, attractive and brainy. To seduce a man you need to be able to make him laugh, entertain him and keep him interested. And it's not enough to just wear garters ..."
- Helena Frith Powell, All You Need to Be Impossibly French
I was recently in Los Angeles a few weeks ago (my home town), and happened to pop into Boulmiche. The same Beverly Hills boutique where the famous scene from the 1990s movie, Pretty Woman, was shot. You know the scene. Vivian (Julia Roberts) walks into the elegant little store dressed in street-walker attire, tons of cash in hand, and asks the price of a dress. The two pretty blond sales women, doing their best impression of conservative rich-lady 80s chic, simply respond, "I don't think we have anything here for you. You're obviously in the wrong place."