|
 The
dinner party is dead. Across the land women last seen tottering
about on Gucci spikes, with a Cosmopolitan in one hand and their
business card in another, are now donning floral pinnies and holding
afternoon Salons, for members of their Jane Austen book-club. Not
for them the late nights and smoky sitting rooms of the uber chic
dinner parties of the Tatler set: no, these are women who took a
long hard look at themselves in their ubiquitous Venetian mirrors,
and set out to re-invent themselves as the women they promised their
Mothers they would never, ever be.
 |
| Alison
May |
It
started with the demise of Sex and the City. All of a sudden Carrie
Bradshaw was posing in Vogue dolled up to the nines and knitting
a pair of baby blue booties. While her fans had been left to wonder
what became of her, here was the awful, lovely truth: nowadays,
she spent her time in a three storey palace in Manhattan suburbia,
ironing Big’s pyjamas and decorating cupcakes- her party days
well and truly over.
To
women of a certain generation, Carrie was the only role model they
had ever had. She was the girl they wanted to be and if she was
hanging up her Manolos and re-inventing herself as a modern retro
housewife, then they too were ready to embrace homemaking in all
its deliciously domestic glory…
You
only have to open the coolest fashion magazines to know that this
is a revolution. When the most desirable style accessories are pink
spotty wellys, supermodels carry their children on their hip with
all the panache with which they used to dangle a cigarette and Julia
Roberts crochets herself a blanket on the set of her latest movie,
you know something is afoot. But what? Are we to pretend that the
fight for equality never happened? Should we fasten our conical
bras, tie on a frilly apron and pretend we are Doris Day, then lose
ourselves in Mrs Beeton and pretend The Female Eunuch was a figment
of our imagination? I don’t think so.
This
isn’t about going back in time, or giving up the freedom we
fought so hard to achieve: it is about reclaiming the values of
yesteryear and integrating them into a life full of opportunity
and new technology, and yet so often lacking in moral fibre.
 |
| "Seek
comfort in a house that's as fresh as a daisy." |
Do
I think home-making is just one more media fad? Absolutely. If Kate
Moss marries Pete Doherty then the magazines will declare debauchery
as the way to go, and fill their pages with underwear and orgies.
But our current passion for all things vintage and homely will leave
a mark on all of our lives. In houses everywhere, children are coming
home from school to home cooked food and Mommies who have re-arranged
their working lives to make it happen. We will continue to take
pride in the homes we love and women like me will forever after
 seek
comfort in a house that’s as fresh as a daisy.
|
