It’s a bit clunky, the strings showing a bit, but Harlots is nothing if not the queen of beautiful distraction. Much of this first hour back is moving the narrative pieces into place for a second season.
Always a follower of fashion, Diana asked Nancy if she would rather be dowdy or ridiculous? “Oh,” Nancy replied,”ridiculous, of course.When we last saw our favorite (and, in some cases, not-favorite) harlots, they were reeling from the consequences of George Howard’s death, Justice Cunliffe’s death (there is a lot of untimely death on this show), and Charlotte Wells’ decision to join forces with Lydia Quigley. However, she loathed the long, bedraggled hairstyles the young people were sporting in London, “It might be pretty if they brushed it,” she said. The French did it better.Īs the sixties approached, Nancy gradually introduced shift dresses to her wardrobe. The Londoners, Nancy explained, were out of step with Paris fashions, and by the time the latest trends reached London, Paris was already two years ahead. Unlike London, where nobody aspired to be fashionable. They did not trudge the streets clad in Dior. But where could one see such a display of good taste? Certainly not on the streets of Paris, Nancy advised, for Parisian women were rarely seen in public, they spent their daily lives entering and exiting private cars, attending discreet luncheons and frequenting exclusive salons to view seasonal collections. Oh yes, Parisian women, to Nancy, were the best dressed in the world. She quickly leapt onto the topic of Parisian women. Their bright smiles, perfect teeth and poodle skirts-the less said about that, the better. The children, she thought, looked like miniature adults with their pristine wardrobes and endless supply of clothing, and the women, quite peculiar in their updated versions of their daughter’s clothing. Oddly, given her attitudes on American culture, Nancy was fascinated with American fashion. A gentleman, she said, would have the social grace to wear his new suit around the garden before debuting it in the office. In England, high fashion was for starlets and harlots. An English Duchess, she explained, would never be in the height of fashion, that, she concluded, was, “Too eccentric,” and awfully bad manners. “The English are hopeless at fashion,” she teased, provoking a violent response from British designers, “I admired a suit in a smart London shop,” she began, “the jacket of which was lovely, but the skirt…quite impossible.” Indeed, in her essay Chic-English, French & American, she expressed her disappointment in English fashion. She needed a wardrobe to go along with the lifestyle. Post 1945 and reaping the success from The Pursuit of Love, Nancy found herself in liberated Paris, residing in a spacious flat on the rue Monsieur. “Really, I leave it everywhere, I long for the insurance money,” she quipped. When socializing, she preferred bias cut gowns, but bemoaned the ragged appearance of her old fur coat. Her dramatic features of black hair and green eyes singled her out from her fair haired siblings.
NANCY HARLOTS SKIN
She stained her skin with coffee beans and shingled her hair. In her youth, Nancy pushed the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable.
Nancy was tall and slim-the perfect recipe for high fashion. In the country, she wore a tweed suit, the jacket of which was slung over a fitted blouse, or jumper. In town, Nancy preferred tailored velvet tops and long wool skirts. She had a knack for modifying her outfits to suit whichever setting she was in. Two decades before Nancy could afford the grandees of Parisian couture, she improvised with a modest wardrobe and a vast imagination.
“Isn’t it awful to love clothes as much as I do, you know, I am not vain at all,” Nancy complained to her mother, Lady Redesdale.
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