Thursday 21 June 2007

Bobbing along unhappily


Eldest is in disgrace as a result at her attempts at home couffer. Fortuitously she has finished with education for the summer hence can be kept secluded at home away from public gaze. The weather is so bad here should she need to venture outside she can cover her head with a water proof hat of some kind and avoid notice.

Meanwhile we must do something to repair her coiffe . I realise of course that it is impossible to re attach her long curls but we can at least take steps to improve upon the effect she has achieved with the kitchen scissors. What we can not repair we may perhaps hide under a bandeaux .

Apparently the bobbed look is quite the rage amongst the fashionable young things both In France and in America. That may well be so but here in Brittany we have our standards. If this is the look at which she was aiming, clearly she missed her target by quite a distance. I was somewhat horrified to discover that the style originated her in France in Paris no less. The fact that it was the creation of one Antoni Cierplikowski who was as one might guess by his name a Pole,explains everything !

Eldest, who seems alarmingly up to date regarding this rage, claims it was started by an actress called Irene Castle,who had her hair cut for the war effort, How cutting ones hair could help Frane win the war one can only imagine!

Eldest tells me it was to prevent women's long hair getting caught up in factory machinery. I did try to point out that had Charlotte at her Fathers Biscuiterie had bobbed hair she still would have fallen in to the vats and had her apron strings caught but this held no water. I do hope the discusions Chief Pattiser and I have had concerning safety in the biscuiterie have not brought back memories of her Uncles unfortunate accident.

I fear her juvenile Psyche has been scarred by fear of being accidentally consumed by a dough mixer. Motherhood is so fraught at times!I can quite see why the English have Nannies.

I shall have to investigate this whole hair bobbing matter further.Meanwhile Madame Grognonne and I have smuggled Madame le Couteau, who is the nearest thing the village boasts to a hairdresser, into the house to see what she can do to recity Eldest's handiwork.

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The photograph is of Irene Castle, not an icon of feminine beauty, but then sine the entire style was according to its Polish inventor based onte hJoan of Arc look one can hardly be surprised. Next thing it will be chain mail vests and metal rivets in undergarments, God only kows what the Breton rain would do to that! There is not enough goosefat in the country to keep women rust free should metal corsety become the vogue!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure eldest looks delightful. Perhaps a new trend can be set in your village. Who knows, it might catch on elsewhere.

Elizabethd said...

What about a neat little Breton coif? she would look so right at all the Fest nozssss coming up.

Chris Stovell said...

Ah, if only the metal corsetry had been available in my youth! Or, come to think of it, when my daughters were gadding about. What worries I would have been spared if they had been shaking their metal-clad booties down at the local hotspot instead of undies I can only describe as string.

Blossomcottage said...

My niece cut discretely through the back of her best friends very very long plait, and when chills mother brushed her hair out that evening the whole lot bar a few long strands fell on the floor. My sister thought they might just have to move house in a hurry there was such a fuss!
Blossom

Blossomcottage said...

sorry CHILD'S!!!

snailbeachshepherdess said...

Get some more cognac and champagne down your neck and it will pass in a veritable pinK and auburn haze and thank the lord she may not have seen Sinead O'Connor when she did the business!

Suffolkmum said...

I'm sure her fashionable new look will catch on!

Faith said...

Les enfants! Who'd have 'em!

Fennie said...

A headdress! Isn't that the answer? A sort of wimple affair. Didn't Breton women used to wear those? Or possibly you could call up Fatima and persuade her to indoctrinate Eldest in the Muslim persuasion. That way she could keep her hair well and truly covered on pain of jihad or fatwa or whatever.

Un Peu Loufoque said...

Ah yes Fennie but I think actually the muslim girls prize their hair quite highly, somehow can not see Salome dancing with a crew cut!!

Perhaps a nunnery is the answer!

Un Peu Loufoque said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pondside said...

How about a good Canadian Toque! You could get Mme G to knit a tasteful one with a fluffy pom-pom and it would conver the shorn head quite admirably!

Frances said...

Bon soir,

Please accept my apologies for being so long in writing. Undesired demands upon my time are yet to be vanquished.

Now, on to coiffures. Sometimes, what seems so shocking may turn out to be a hint of what will soon become the new standard of beauty. This may not apply to what you now see at the chateau, but do keep it in mind. You, as an artist, can well judge what others may take more time to discover.

I cannot remember, does one's hair grow faster in hot or cold weather? In any case, your lovely daughter's hair will replenish itself quickly. Think of how trimming plants may strengthen them. Perhaps do a few drawings, particularly in profile view, of your daughter. Be objective. She may be glad in future decades to know that you took this time to observe her, and to value that observation.

Are you aware if any of your daughter's friends have also shorn their locks? Is is a trend amongst them? Perhaps she is the first, the vangard, a leader?

I do not think that covering up the new hair style is advisable. It may be better to let it be what it will be.

Hoping that these comments will not offend your aesthetics. I only mean to give you comfort and to present another vantage point.

A demain.

Sally Townsend said...

My dear you must be in a state of shock, I know how sensitive you are to such ghastly and vulgar attempts to become 'a la mode' that puts you in the 'follow the herd' mentality. A glass of Absinthe usually does the trick.

Westerwitch/Headmistress said...

Ooooeerrr - Son cut his hair after a relationship finished . . . .and would allow no-one with scissors anywhere near him . . . good grief indeed the trials of motherhood - catching up with the Tales of Un Pue - so moving swiftly on.