I get out of the taxi and move toward the Royal Guard to present our official invitation to this gala garden party celebration. It is Queen Elizabeth’s Official Birthday. The fete is in the Governor’s Home on the Peak in Hong Kong, then a Royal Crown Colony.
The prescribed dress is “garden formal.” That has presented a slight problem. By all proper English decorum that means ladies will wear appropriate hats. My wife, Jane, had left all her “garden hats” in the States years before. Missionary salaries precluded a visit to any local millinery shop (of which there were none in the Colony anyway) to secure proper head wear. However, in her usual excellent taste, ingenuity and skill, and drawing upon genes inherited from a grandmother who had run a millinery shop in the haute culture center of Decatur, Indiana at the turn of the century - and with the assistance of missionary wives of several religious denominations she is, in fact, properly attired with a gorgeous hat most suitable for a Garden Party in Honor of the Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.
I have been led to understand that “appropriate dress” is subject to a variety of interpretations. In the case of Jane’s hat and the Queen’s Garden Party one rule of chic was paramount: she dare not look like a missionary wife!
I was recalling other instructions on fashion statements given me by my parents. When, during the Great Depression of the 1930’s I questioned the stylishness of the knickers handed down to me by an older cousin, my mother had instructed me, “If the clothes is clean and well ironed, it will be just fine.”
My father added his advice, “If your shoes are freshly polished, everyone will agree you are well dressed.”
Incidentally, we had a great time at the Garden Party, and I, for one, thought I had the most smashingly attired partner of anyone there.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment