Hello again! Please forgive me my blog absence, sweets. I've been off doing my best impersonation of a dutiful housewife, including but not limited to Christmas shopping, decking the halls, and pretending to ignore the outrageous sums the
Anonymous Husband spent Ebaying AC/DC tickets,
although the latter may prove a useful weapon in my ongoing Macbook crusade. Ahem. In any event, I'm back - or "Back in Black" as the aforementioned band might put it . . .
Anywhoooo, as you might imagine, We here at the Pretty have devoted no small amount of time and energy into the study of what makes an cultural icon of our most favorite flavor, the Ice Princess. It would be easy to merely group together the most famous of the group based on outward appearances alone - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (obvs), Princess Grace (obvs obvs), January Jones when in "Mad Men" character, etc. - but surely the question merits a less superficial take. Pets, it isn't often that you'll find me advocating a
less superficial approach to anything, so I hereby accept your polite applause and suggest the following as rules in addition to the physical obvious which we should be using in our evaluations:
1) Curiosity about the world, whether it be via travel (according to one's means, of course), keeping up with current events, etc.;
2) Education, whether it be formal or an ongoing personal process of reading and learning;
3) Charitable involvement, again according to one' s abilities and interests;
4) Demurely, deceptively delicate demeanor and deportment (and, apparently, alliteration and assonance);
5) Unapologetic affection for natural glamour, both in one's appearance and one's surroundings; and
6) A private sense of superiority based upon knowledge of #1-5 above, evidenced only by an ever-so-slightly icy and sly smile.
So as a student of the genre, I was quite intrigued to stumble across
this Harper's Bazaar feature on Mrs. Beckham herself, in which she explains the machinery behind the "icon" (Pretty Parentheses added) that is Posh:
(credit: Harper's Bazaar via People Magazine)
I won't spoil the fun of reading this yourself, but for those of you wanting an abridged version, here for your delectation are Mrs. Beckham's additions to the Ice Princess Lexicon:
- (when asked about those infamous no-heel boots she recently wore): "Oh, c'mon, they're not that hard to walk in . . . you have to go to a sex shop to get this spray to polish them."
(credit: Daily Mail)
I'm thinking the key accessory here is less the harlot-y non-heels, and more the Arm Charm (hideous pinstripes notwithstanding), don't you?
- (when asked how she prepares for events): "I go into hair and makeup, and I turn into 'Victoria Beckham.'
- (when asked about running out to do errands): "If I go to the supermarket looking like sh-t, that affects my work. I am selling an image."
This all seems, I dunno, a bit heavy on the external, "branding" business, and less concerned about the other stuff that makes a legend . . . what do you think? Have I read too much Jane Austen - wait, don't answer that - such that I expect my heroines to be "accomplished" along the lines of what we discussed above, or is pop culture indeed steering us in the wrong, PVC-clad direction?
ETA: I hope I didn't imply that my jury has definitively voted on Posh per se. Unlike She Who Shall Not Be Named (name rhymes with "Laris Pilton"), I'm confident that Victoria is in on the joke, she has a few undeniably fabulous, non-PVC items in her closet, and I won't deny that she is . . . something. It's the idea that she's an ICON with a capital "i" that I'm not quite comfortable with yet. Let the debates continue!
