Great piece. I was fascinated by Ms Rakoff's description of her mother's style. My mother was of a different (lower) socio-economic class but the same generation and to the end of her long life she never ventured even to the supermarket without changing out of her "house clothes" and putting on at least a dash of lipstick -- and definitely not in tennis shoes! I also appreciate that Ms Rakoff recognizes and owns her mother's sartorial influence. It's not common on our side of the Atlantic. Edmund White observed in his novel The Married Man that the difference between American girls and French girls is that the latter actually WANT to look like their mothers.
Great piece. I was fascinated by Ms Rakoff's description of her mother's style. My mother was of a different (lower) socio-economic class but the same generation and to the end of her long life she never ventured even to the supermarket without changing out of her "house clothes" and putting on at least a dash of lipstick -- and definitely not in tennis shoes! I also appreciate that Ms Rakoff recognizes and owns her mother's sartorial influence. It's not common on our side of the Atlantic. Edmund White observed in his novel The Married Man that the difference between American girls and French girls is that the latter actually WANT to look like their mothers.
I so loved Joanna's mother's code and have half a mind to adopt it myself.