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Nov. 7th, 2009 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
titusnowlWhat (Not?) To Wear
How Poor Fashion Decisions Lead To True Romance in Catherine Airlie's The Ways of Love
By Thierry Martin
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that those who seek the favours of Cupid must first attract his roving eye; and most would believe, guided by societal pressure and their own inner logic, that to follow Dame Fashion would surely bring them into his line of fire. We are urged to dress our best, to appear our best; to put our best foot forward, and to be certain that the foot is clad in the finest and most stylish shoe we can possibly locate, so that the eyes of all will turn to us, and some lucky fool's heart be turned with his head. However, Catherine Airlie's seminal novel The Ways of Love presents an interesting hypothesis: perhaps the very reverse is true, and by being deliberately atrocious in our mode of dress we may attract more attention, and, thus, more amours. An assiduous study of her characters' habiliments - carefully described in their dubious array - will show that, at least within the romantic Highlands of the story, nothing is so certain to cause everyone to fall all over themselves at you as wearing ugly shoes.
The very instant we are introduced to the novel's primary love interest, the beautiful Margot Livingstone - before, in fact, we are even allowed to know her name, which is not given for another two pages - we are informed of the state of her footwear: "what Hew could only describe as a cobweb of silly straps. The fact that they did not even possess backs to them appalled him." (23) These "inadequate sandals," which "make nonsense" of her claim to be "a dignified sort of person" (all of those being on 23 as well) are both our, and the brooding, Heathcliffian Highlander Hew Sutherland's, first glimpse of the woman; and yet, only two paragraphs and a flip of the page later, he is carrying her (with his own "stout boots and leather leggings" (23 again), which are scarcely high fashion themselves) through a puddle in his arms, and feeling "his body stiffen and melt" (24) - which quite frankly seems a bit premature under the circumstances, not to mention rather messy, but which is nevertheless the raciest passage in the entire book. But I digress.
When next we see the lovely Miss Livingstone, she is clad in "green; soft, beautifully-cut tweeds with an overcheck of purple," (35) along with a purple scarf. While the combination would seem to any thinking person who was not a sufferer of anomalous trichromacy to be a wretched eyesore, the effect it has upon Sutherland seems to be endearment. Perhaps, being Scottish, he has a genetic predisposition toward terrible fabrics. On the cover, after all, he is shown wearing a reddish-orange plaid shirt with what appears to be a robin's-egg blue, or perhaps toothpaste-green, scarf tucked inside it.
At this point, when one finds, on page 63, a description of Margot's father Gilbert Livingstone - "the capacious pockets of his ancient Norfolk jacket bulging with the specimens" that he, an ardent geologist, had been out acquiring - one more than half expects young Cathie Fleming, who has been set up as the secondary love interest from the first page but who apparently does not wear clothing, to fall into his lap. Who could resist such a horrid outfit?
But no - for Miss Fleming, the love interest is only a few sheets away: Elliott Livingstone arrives on page 66, arrayed in a grey suit - ah, surely no rival there, for who can go wrong with a grey suit? Yet he is also wearing hardy brown boots, as befits an explorer; and no-one should ever wear brown with grey.
Still, there is little enough incentive for Mr. Livingstone to pursue his Highland lassie - until the dramatic climax on page 132, wherein the previously-nude Miss Fleming produces a pink windcheater, which she promptly removes and hands over to someone else. Yet even in this brief period of ownership, she establishes herself as a person of terrible taste, surely worth falling in love with - particularly considering that her hair is flaming red. The sickly contrast between jacket and hair must have been astounding.
Throughout the denouement Miss Livingstone continues the precedent she had set, tottering about in "grey brogues with yellow laces" (152) and, most astonishingly of all, "a string of fish" (155) - which is indubitably the most avant-garde accessory anyone has yet thought up; her brother tops himself with a pair of "old drill slacks and fisherman's jersey... and he hadn't shaved properly for days." (185) With two such ill-dressed suitors come to call, Mr. Sutherland and Miss Fleming are unable to resist; and by the end, both couples are happily paired off, with wedding plans in the air.
It is interesting, perhaps, that only the Livingstones' clothing receives much attention from the author; then again, they are presented as Londoners, visiting the Scottish Highlands, and thus more noteworthy. It can be taken as a given that the Highlanders themselves are dressed in horrid rags, as is the way of their people. To dwell upon such details to excess would be ignominious.
Outfits are noted only for their effect upon the viewer; and whilst the reader, in his or her mind's eye, may be retching, the characters within the story react most favourably, throwing themselves into the ill-clad arms of their lovers with more force the worse the outfit is described to be. As all literature is but a mirror of truth, the application of this principle to real life would seem to reinforce the theory; for at least one Ohioan, a man who wears green stripe cable-knit pullovers and Old Spice beats out a fellow in Carnaby and Savile Row tailoring and a splash of Zizanie, for instance. Thus we may conclude that Airlie was on to something after all, and perhaps the author of this essay should look into buying a paisley sport-coat or something.
The End
How Poor Fashion Decisions Lead To True Romance in Catherine Airlie's The Ways of Love
By Thierry Martin
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that those who seek the favours of Cupid must first attract his roving eye; and most would believe, guided by societal pressure and their own inner logic, that to follow Dame Fashion would surely bring them into his line of fire. We are urged to dress our best, to appear our best; to put our best foot forward, and to be certain that the foot is clad in the finest and most stylish shoe we can possibly locate, so that the eyes of all will turn to us, and some lucky fool's heart be turned with his head. However, Catherine Airlie's seminal novel The Ways of Love presents an interesting hypothesis: perhaps the very reverse is true, and by being deliberately atrocious in our mode of dress we may attract more attention, and, thus, more amours. An assiduous study of her characters' habiliments - carefully described in their dubious array - will show that, at least within the romantic Highlands of the story, nothing is so certain to cause everyone to fall all over themselves at you as wearing ugly shoes.
The very instant we are introduced to the novel's primary love interest, the beautiful Margot Livingstone - before, in fact, we are even allowed to know her name, which is not given for another two pages - we are informed of the state of her footwear: "what Hew could only describe as a cobweb of silly straps. The fact that they did not even possess backs to them appalled him." (23) These "inadequate sandals," which "make nonsense" of her claim to be "a dignified sort of person" (all of those being on 23 as well) are both our, and the brooding, Heathcliffian Highlander Hew Sutherland's, first glimpse of the woman; and yet, only two paragraphs and a flip of the page later, he is carrying her (with his own "stout boots and leather leggings" (23 again), which are scarcely high fashion themselves) through a puddle in his arms, and feeling "his body stiffen and melt" (24) - which quite frankly seems a bit premature under the circumstances, not to mention rather messy, but which is nevertheless the raciest passage in the entire book. But I digress.
When next we see the lovely Miss Livingstone, she is clad in "green; soft, beautifully-cut tweeds with an overcheck of purple," (35) along with a purple scarf. While the combination would seem to any thinking person who was not a sufferer of anomalous trichromacy to be a wretched eyesore, the effect it has upon Sutherland seems to be endearment. Perhaps, being Scottish, he has a genetic predisposition toward terrible fabrics. On the cover, after all, he is shown wearing a reddish-orange plaid shirt with what appears to be a robin's-egg blue, or perhaps toothpaste-green, scarf tucked inside it.
At this point, when one finds, on page 63, a description of Margot's father Gilbert Livingstone - "the capacious pockets of his ancient Norfolk jacket bulging with the specimens" that he, an ardent geologist, had been out acquiring - one more than half expects young Cathie Fleming, who has been set up as the secondary love interest from the first page but who apparently does not wear clothing, to fall into his lap. Who could resist such a horrid outfit?
But no - for Miss Fleming, the love interest is only a few sheets away: Elliott Livingstone arrives on page 66, arrayed in a grey suit - ah, surely no rival there, for who can go wrong with a grey suit? Yet he is also wearing hardy brown boots, as befits an explorer; and no-one should ever wear brown with grey.
Still, there is little enough incentive for Mr. Livingstone to pursue his Highland lassie - until the dramatic climax on page 132, wherein the previously-nude Miss Fleming produces a pink windcheater, which she promptly removes and hands over to someone else. Yet even in this brief period of ownership, she establishes herself as a person of terrible taste, surely worth falling in love with - particularly considering that her hair is flaming red. The sickly contrast between jacket and hair must have been astounding.
Throughout the denouement Miss Livingstone continues the precedent she had set, tottering about in "grey brogues with yellow laces" (152) and, most astonishingly of all, "a string of fish" (155) - which is indubitably the most avant-garde accessory anyone has yet thought up; her brother tops himself with a pair of "old drill slacks and fisherman's jersey... and he hadn't shaved properly for days." (185) With two such ill-dressed suitors come to call, Mr. Sutherland and Miss Fleming are unable to resist; and by the end, both couples are happily paired off, with wedding plans in the air.
It is interesting, perhaps, that only the Livingstones' clothing receives much attention from the author; then again, they are presented as Londoners, visiting the Scottish Highlands, and thus more noteworthy. It can be taken as a given that the Highlanders themselves are dressed in horrid rags, as is the way of their people. To dwell upon such details to excess would be ignominious.
Outfits are noted only for their effect upon the viewer; and whilst the reader, in his or her mind's eye, may be retching, the characters within the story react most favourably, throwing themselves into the ill-clad arms of their lovers with more force the worse the outfit is described to be. As all literature is but a mirror of truth, the application of this principle to real life would seem to reinforce the theory; for at least one Ohioan, a man who wears green stripe cable-knit pullovers and Old Spice beats out a fellow in Carnaby and Savile Row tailoring and a splash of Zizanie, for instance. Thus we may conclude that Airlie was on to something after all, and perhaps the author of this essay should look into buying a paisley sport-coat or something.
The End
