Princess Margaret

Verdict: Cautionary — the most instructive failure.

Princess Margaret had access to everything — dressmakers, jewels, position, the most distinguished company in England — and yet produced inelegance. The diagnosis is the one Dariaux reserves for the most instructive of cautionary cases: she confused conspicuousness with chic, and effort with effect.

By trying too hard to be chic, she succeeded in being neither regal nor elegant — only conspicuous. Effort, in dress as in chic, always shows. The conspicuousness that results from trying to achieve chic is the precise opposite of chic; it demonstrates, in the wearing, the absence of the quality it seeks to project.

The Margaret case is most valuable in contrast with Jacqueline Kennedy. Both women occupied positions of immense public visibility; both had access to the best dressmakers; both were watched at every public appearance. Kennedy emerged with a reputation that confirmed the Third Principle — self-knowledge, adaptation, the right dress for the right life. Margaret emerged as Dariaux's clearest evidence that wealth, position, and access to couture cannot substitute for the discipline of restraint.

Restraint is not a limitation imposed by circumstance. It is a discipline chosen by intelligence. The woman of means who imposes restraint on herself produces elegance. The woman of means who refuses to do so produces conspicuousness — and conspicuousness is not the same as being noticed. To be noticed is easy. To compel the second glance that finds harmony is the achievement.

See Chic and Elegance (Principle VI) for the full theoretical treatment of the chic/elegance distinction. See Restraint for the cross-domain concept. See Jacqueline Kennedy for the contrasting exemplar.