Pretty people

The very last time I talked with my great-grandmother, we had a discussion about a headscarf that she did not want to wear. It was late autumn, and very stormy weather. I was running after her, with this thick, warm, practical garment that my grandmother had wanted to lend to her. But headscarf was something for the barn, when milking the cow, or for working in the fields! In my childish certainty I explained to her, that in this weather, in a dark night, on a small back-road, there would be nobody else to see what she is wearing or how she looks. Guaranteed! That is when she stops, turns to look at me, and says: But I will know it myself!

I followed her all the way back to her house, then I walked alone in the night thinking about what I had just learned. About self-respect and dignity.

From younger relatives I had learned that it is what is inside of us, that matters. That it is shallow and stupid to be concerned about appearances and beauty. This was the generation of men who would be stopped in the door of a restaurant because they did not wear a tie, and then go back to the same restaurant the next week-end. Still without a tie. This was the generation of aunts wearing natural coloured linen tunic, or funny Marimekko flower-patterns. It was the age of hippies and flower-power, and children of nature!

For us who grew up in the wake of the big youth rebellion, it became natural to use very long time putting on make-up in such a way that nobody could see we had used anything. My grandmother would spend 5 minutes putting on lipstick, powder and rouge to look pretty. My aunt would spend 30 minutes, using all kinds of products, to look natural. I had from an early age internalized the concept of natural beauty, and the opposite was vain goat.

Then my great-grandmother managed to shatter my simple, childish understanding of division between absolute right and wrong.

I had been used to my great-grandfathers outrage over TV close-up of skiers and other athletes with snot and drool all over the face. I have to agree with him, it would take them just a second to wipe their face. When he was a young man, he jumped in the Holmenkollen and competed in long races, and still he never let anyone see him “looking like a savage”. The answer he usually got, was that in the modern world we have more professional attitude, today sports are all about results and performing, and not about looking good.

Really? To me it seems that sports are entertainment and circus, now more than ever. Is it not arrogant, not to care about how they appear, for the TV viewers who in the end pay the costs? Or maybe this is about different images, different ideals, carefully built and maintained by media advisors with knowledge of what will appeal to the different groups of audience.

Some athletes manage to combine a healthy desire to look good, with serious performance and results that demands respect! I am still waiting for a commercial to tell me what brand of make-up our women’s handball-team uses, I think they put it to the test much more than those movie stars we see in every add!

In the 1960s young people who dressed in protest risked being spitted at by enraged people. They broke the norms. Men with long beards supposedly showed the world that they did not care to look decent in presence of women. They looked like lumberjacks working in the forest the whole week. To not bother to shave, that was to show disrespect for the ladies… according to the older generation.

The worst was, they did not wear a hat! Bareheaded men were breaking a strong taboo, and challenging all social rules. And they knew it! According to my father, James Dean and Marlon Brando launched a delayed rebellion among boys, and they had a lot of catching up to do to get the same freedom as women.

Families on the beach, she in modern swimsuit with nice low-cut neck, he in his ordinary cotton underwear, T-shirt and shorts. Or in traditional swimsuit with arms! Because it was important to not be intrusive, hairy chests would not be nice to look at.

Young girls should wait until they grew older, before dressing up. Especially traditional costume jewellery, what we call bosom-silver and wife-belt. And all sorts of nice hats. That was for the older women. The young ones, they were pretty themselves, did not need anything extra. The older we get, the more we need to make an effort! And the more we need to hide… grey hair should be covered!

Thoose women who used to go to the shop wearing hairpins and headscarf. You do not see that anymore, but the cheap jogging suit makes the same statement. That they do not care about how they look, or what people think. Is this independence, being self-contained, or is it lack of respect for other people they meet?

Almost hundred years ago we had a writer, Margrethe Munthe, she is famous for her educational songs. She wanted to teach young people good manners! Every Norwegian know the song about the bad by who have to stop rushing into the house without removing his hat. How rude! When kids do this now, wear a knitted hat indoors, is it rebelling? A new generation against Munthe? Is it lack of respect for the host? Or is it just vanity, they do not want to show their hat-hairdo to the world?

Would anyone sit down at a table with head still covered? We have an expression in Norway, to grow up in a home with furniture… that means to learn the basics, about how to behave and what not to do. Maybe keeping the hat on in presence of food shows you did not see much furniture.

High heels, are they the ultimate surrender to fashion, to men’s expectations? Or a way to feel taller, tougher, unapproachable, even a little dangerous?

Second-hand clothes, grand-dad`s shirts, black clothes and dark make-up, it can all be a rebellion against consumer society, or it can just be a young person not at ease in her own body. It can be hard to come to terms with puberty changes and adult body, to accept that from now on you have boobs and hips.

On top of all this, in addition to all the social, constructed meaning embedded in clothing, we even have to relate to an unforgiving climate! Wearing trousers to a party instead of a dress, it does not necessarily mean that a women is trying to make any statement, or that she thinks suits are more sexy. It might just be that she already had pneumonia once this winter, and she does not need it again.

We might fool ourselves into thinking what we wear is our own decision, that we are free to choose every morning. Think again! Every last detail is a statement, a communication to the world.

Self-respect and respect for those who see me, or superficially focusing on appearances?

Informal and natural, or sloppy and lazy?

Individualistic and reflected, or rude and offending?

And to all those who are now laughing at this, thinking it is just stupid: Tell me honestly if you never phoned or texted to a friend to ask what she planned to wear to a party or a dinner. We sometimes want to look our very best, but of course not overdo it!