Happy Easter

"Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees filled all the air with fragrance and with joy." – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For Easter this year, I’m sharing images from Chateau de Wideville. The chateau in France owned by the late fashion designer Valentino. These photos are from his friends Carlos Souza and Giancarlo Giammetti from Easter weekend in 2019.

I was just going to post them without commentary but looking at these photos has me wondering if the reason we are disappointed in a lot of fashions on the market these days is because so many fashion designers themselves are disappointing. Few of them have the impeccable taste of past designers like Valentino, Hubert de Givenchy, Cristobal Balenciaga, or Christian Dior, whose taste extended from clothing to interiors and table settings.

Of course, life itself no longer lends itself to beautiful clothing. People on the street look like they’ve rolled out of bed, a gym, or a meth lab, or all three. Workers rarely go to the office and no one even wants to go out and do things so there are fewer reasons to get dressed up or even dressed at all.

I can’t wait to get back to Paris next week since the French consider a trip to the market as a reason to get dressed up. Alex from the Après Edit suggested in a Substack Note that hot girls in Paris wearing their workout clothes under their normal outfits was a commitment to aesthetics. I countered that it was a commitment to the social contract of the city. Parisians don’t go out in workout clothes or looking like a shlub because it’s considered something rude to do to your neighbors and strangers on the street.

Will we ever get back to this sense of style in the US? Part of me wants to say no but maybe if we all make an effort, our examples might be replicated or at least admired, just like Valentino’s chateau.

Happy Easter!

XOXO,

HC

“Even the smallest one can change the world.” — Peter Rabbit