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if you're an astro angel, my chart is deeply intertwined with houses and archetypes that bring a focus to the Dead and Ancestors. when i dress myself, i naturally think about what my styling reflects about my chart. in terms of spiritual philosophy, i believe that studying one's chart is the same as studying one's destiny and helps with developing a closer relationship with yourself. so thinking about how my outfit reflects my chart is a favorite way for me to express the relationship i have with myself and what choices i'm inspired to make as i learn more about myself.
i've always known that i have a capricorn midheaven but for some reason i feel like i suddenly re-realized this recently after re-reading this one-liner about what the MC is a few weeks ago. since then, i've had a bit of an internal retrospective about moments in my style journey when i wondered why i could never sustain a relationship with more colorful and bright expressions. i also wondered why i so often gravitate towards "formalwear." i definitely feel very colorful and bright and unserious/casual on the inside. my bedroom features a lot more color than my how i style myself— pinks, yellows, oranges, lime greens and whimsical objects—it's an inner child oasis. i come from lineages that have very vibrant and colorful ways of dressing. i've had more than one attempt at dressing more colorfully as well as less formally. but i never feel quite right when i present myself that way.
when i was little, some of my favorite movies were eloise at the plaza and eloise at christmastime. eloise at the plaza is described as exploring the life of "an irrepressible six-year-old girl who lives in the penthouse at the top of the Plaza Hotel in New York City." the movie's ideal of elegance, attention to beauty, and style majorly expressed through formalwear absolutely delighted me. at the time, my favorite color was pink and the main character, eloise, had an all pink bedroom with a bedframe that was quite grand. she lived in a world where cultivating a beautiful experience mattered. the set of this movie romanticizes living at the plaza hotel in manhattan. there are tall ceilings with brocade wallpapers and large floral arrangements carefully placed about. her room service always comes with a red rose placed in a vase. she plays beneath huge chandeliers. in eloise at the plaza, one of the things this six-year old is trying to do is "wrangle an invitation to the society event of the season." those movies were the first and last place i ever heard the word "debutante." they were the first cultural influences that taught me about the idea/perception of paris as "fashionable" and "classy."
"Yves Saint Laurent admired her and wanted to represent her. Half-loony, smoking in public places like Catherine Deneuve. Wearing fifteen-centimeter heels and her Chanel bag as if it were free. Wearing shouldered jackets because, indeed, everything starts with the shoulders. Eating crab in brasseries without fretting over staining her Céline blouse. Dropping everything if her heart says so."
- Loïc Prigent , "The Parisian," French Vogue, August 2012
reminiscing about eloise inspired me to look up what a debutante is. while reading and looking at pictures, i saw this image of a debutante ball that speaks to what it feels like to dress a capricorn MC. a debutante ball is sort of like a coming of age event where the debutante is formally presented to society. it reminds me of the MC being about public image—how you present yourself to the external. i've always gravitated towards presentations of self that feel elegant to me. i talk about the style of my childhood into my teen years in my first post and there you can see some images of how my 13-14 year old selves wanted to present themselves when coming up with outfits.
but what is "elegance"? what is "grace"? these concepts are subjective. when i think about elegance and grace in relation to the energy of capricorn, it becomes easier to clarify what i associate those words with and why.
those two dresses in the very front of the image above—the black and white one on the bottom left and the blue and yellow one on the bottom right are so grand. baby sienna would've loved to wear one of those. there's something about dressing "grand" that evokes the spirit of a mountain or an old tall and towering tree. both a mountain and a old tall towering tree are deeply rooted, ancient, and simply grand in terms of their presence. both have an air of wisdom and command the kind of respect that can only come from a shared humility (meaning: no one thing better or worse than another). my affinity for this expression makes me wonder if i was once a mountain and/or tree spirit. the more i blog, the more i realize how my style keeps playing with this idea of dressing an earthy, grand, and refined saturn-ruled MC. when i say "refined," i mean that in the most literal sense. i love to edit things down, i love to refine things, i love to make something more feel more precise to me (if you've read my virgo season post, you already know that i am venusian ruled by a virgo venus). there's also this monastic vibe that i associate with saturn—the practice of expressing core essence and letting go of excess.
to me, a grand, elegant, graceful presence feels slow moving and connected to both Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld—it feels like listening to an elder share their first person experiences of becoming freer and wiser; it feels like the Mother that embraces all Life. so, "classiness" or "refinement" by upper society's metrics doesn't mean much to me when thinking about elegance and grace. this is what draws me to the idea of a grande dame. i also appreciate the way this term is an expression of respect for a wise woman. the term reminds me of unabashed sensuality and intuition. it reminds me of knowing how to wield love as both the healing balm and the sword. it reminds me of how buddhist nun jeong kwan says she practices the attitude of the Mother. there is a grandness and wisdom i only associate with the Mother and the Grandmother.
there's also something that alice sparkly kat wrote about a taurus ascendant's capricorn 9th house that speaks to how i define the energy of grande dame:
"Taurus risings keep things pretty close to the chest. Cancer third house is a private placement. Cancer is a sign that prefers to hide somewhere and observe everything that’s going on and, with Cancer in the third house, Taurus risings are listeners over talkers. They have a couple of people who they allow to hear their ideas but they prefer to influence the room without having to make their own voice be heard. In fact, often the louder voices in the room are attempting to seek the approval of the silent but listening Taurus rising.
Who Taurus rising goes along with, however, will not depend on persuasiveness nor volume. A Taurus rising will not simply agree with you because you want them to. It is impossible to convince a Taurus rising of something. They have Capricorn in the ninth house. They make up their own mind. In fact, the more you try to talk a Taurus rising into something, the more likely they will end up not agreeing with you even though they might not outwardly say so in the moment.
Taurus risings don’t talk to a lot of people. That’s okay. They don’t need to. They don’t need to ask a bunch of people what their opinions are. They make up their own minds about their own ideas. When Taurus rising leads, they will be a sure and quiet leader who doesn’t need to impress anyone to feel powerful."
i see a grande dame as someone who makes up their own mind. they are sure and quiet as a form of elegance and grace. they influence the room without having to make their voice be heard. they have undeniable presence. they are deeply rooted in the core that remains no matter how much changes. they do not need to be the loudest voice to have an impact, they are silent and listening. given that a grande dame is also an elder, they are the one others seek the opinion of. some people say we are "ancestors in training." ti grande dame takes a similar view: i am a grande dame in training. i'd say that's big capricorn energy...
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reminiscing about eloise also makes me appreciate the innocence that comes with childhood. i would probably never come accross this movie as an adult and, if i did, i know i'd have something to say about the way this movie glamorizes wealth hoarding and elitism. i would notice how the world that delighted my child self requires creating hierarchies and deeming some things as "low class" and "trashy." i would notice how there are no black people involved in this world! i would have qualms with how the dress codes of this world are exclusively western (read: white supremacy and elitism buy into a consensus reality that western dress is the epitome of "high class"). i would probably critique the standards and metrics and codes as squarely against my values and philosophies on life. i might even make some snarky comments about the romanticization of paris and speaking french (i am not a nationalist but i deeply revere my Ancestors: VIV AYITI!).
but as a child, i loved this idea having "classy" style—i wanted to present myself with intention and i wanted to be seen as elegant and "well put together." i didn't understand yet what eloise living in a penthouse at the top of the plaza in manhattan was articulating about class and society. i just knew i liked the formalwear everyone was wearing, that she always had a bow in hair, that the environment around her was beautifully designed, and that she still could be her mischievous and playful self in these prim and proper places. this upper class world with clear codes of conduct—including ways of dressing—was still no match for the free spirit of a child.
as a teenager, i was swept off my feet by punk ethos and punk style. the ever-evolving aesthetics and ideology of punk are what really cemented my interest in getting dressed. punk ethos spoke to the part of me that is so irreverent and loves subversion. it spoke to the heretic in me, the free-spirit in me. and, most simply and importantly, it spoke to my humanity. i love punk aesthetics because they are the aesthetics of making do with what you have and taking pleasure in doing shit your way.
punk aesthetics also helped me reconcile my love of formalwear with my qualms about visually communicating in ways that could read as opting into western-centered ideals of "classiness" or "properness" and elitism. i was more enamored with formalwear garments when styled out of that "classy" context and remixed with the wearer's personalization. you could say that bringing formalwear to everyday life and to the streets, rather than it being reserved for the wealthy and their elite events, is part of what intrigued me. i found that subversion delightful & strange. i love peculiarity first and foremost. i loved that it was possible to take a garment out of one context and give it new life in another. and, i have a personal philosophy that the ordinary and the mundane are magical and divine and that every single aspect of this reality, including myself, is a miracle. our lives and our time together incarnated as our present selves are rare passing moments and are worth celebrating--i like to dress for the occasion as often as possible.
at the core of everything i've shared is my journey to get to know myself better and the confidence i feel when i let myself dress in ways that satisfy me and feel true to me. the grande dame understands that our power is derived from being the head of ourselves and taking responsibility for our destiny. the grande dame sets the standards she lives by--she makes up her own mind. to me that is what it means to channel grande dame energy in my styling. dressing this way feels a bit like a protective charm too. sudddenly, i've called in more than just myself. like the ancient tree and mountain, grande dame energy reaches into Heaven, is of the Earth, and the Underworld. it is an energy that respects the divinity of all life and venerates all that shaped our present.
((as i wrote this post, venus entered capricorn. happy venus return 𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ to all the natal venus in cap angels))
