They will call us old school, traditional, conservative and preppy – I call it vintage and classy.
I adored this – a novel perspective, the observation to see how you’ve grown and celebrating the ability to evolve and pivot into a new season: la beaute de devenir. Standing here, ten years later, the realisation that reaches my heart’s surface, is that most memories will become ghosts in our own Chelsea Hotel, but we will choose to remember them as the Villa Casa Casuarina moments. C’est la vie.
I looked back on the sandcastles of memories stacked in vials, draping every wall. I twirled off to the music department that became our terra firma in those days, the solidity and the hideout where improv became the maxim. It was necessary to see the ideas and the traditions that shaped identity and perspectives. So why would you revisit an era that has long since passed?
I just call it: for the “pièce de résistance” …
In the history of 164 years, the following cornerstone shapes the traditions and ideas, and it rings as follow:
“She believed that women should receive the best intellectual training possible. She also believed in the cultivation of a truly moral and religious character and that should be of supreme importance. To seek first the Kingdom of God. On her tombstone there was also written: “I fear only one thing in the world: that I should fail to know my duty, or know I should fail to do it.”
My opinion: you have to remember where you came from, to be thankful for the person you are becoming and cultivating. Was the perception conservative? Yes. Are we most probably the O.G.’s for feminism? Yes. But one thing that will keep our heads, heels and standard’s high is the legacy: cultivate a spirit of excellence, but advocate grace in the process. We will always be vintage inspired.
How do we do that, you may ask, to cultivate a spirit of excellence?
1. Stand firm on the traditions that created structure over the past 164 years, and still forms the corner stones.
2. Nourish an equal place for the head, heart and hand.
3. Do not ask what was pleasant, but be ready gladly and instantly to do the right thing.
4. Celebrate one another with grace and elegance.
5. Carry yourself with grace, poise and authenticity.
6. Do it in style: always feminine and with class.
7. Know you are unable to stand alone – no man/woman is an island.
8. Move forward: En Avant.
I am extremely thankful for these memories, cornerstones, traditions and haunted school halls, but also thankful for every new chapter, the change in seasons and the ability to evolve – moving forward: elegantly, like a lady. For everything is made perfect in its season.