Even though Jenn and the City is really Jenn and the Country now, I still keep one eyeball on the fashion pages and admittedly possess a superfluous passion for shoes – since I spend most of my life in flip-flops. Do NOT tell Clinton and Stacy. I also have an inherent curiousity in obscure cultural trends.
My friend Karen, of mushroom soup fame, forwarded on a link this morning from the Philadelphia Inquirer fashion pages lauding the return of the pocket to pret-a-porter dresses. Men won’t get this, but dress and suit wearing women will. The pocket was a wardrobe mainstay in the 50’s (find a Chanel suit without pockets), but it was sewn into obscurity in the decades that followed.
Many women will find this fashion trend completely irrelevent, but there is a segment of society that is cheering loudly, me included. If you’re unfamiliar with the world of the dog show, have never seen Westminster, have never watched Best in Show, this may make no sense. People who show dogs need pockets. We use them. We carry squeakies, fuzzies, dessicated liver, pepperoni, dried beef heart, cheese, or whatever else we need to capture and contain the dog’s attention in the ring. And we must “dress up” – it’s tradition. You won’t ever catch an experienced handler in the ring wearing jeans. So bless the return of the pocket.
On the other hand, courtesy of the London Daily Mail, we learn of the demise of the table knife. The English, being a civilized sort of society, traditionally use a knife and fork together to eat, fork in the left hand, knife in the right. Etiquette note: This is, in fact, proper. In fast-food America, we have apparently out-grown the need for a knife while dining. This trend has insidiously traversed the Atlantic and is pervading British civilization. The department store Debenham’s has noted that in separated cutlery sets, forks outsell knives three to one. I’m not surprised, you can’t even get a plastic knife on an airplane these days. A simple object of domesticity made obsolete by drive-thru dining and TSA.
There’s no real shock that the table knife is going the way of the dodo. Faced with a full table setting, I doubt most Americans would know what to do with half the cutlery presented. I am rather disappointed that the trend is spreading to England. There are some things about English culture that ought to be preserved, including good table etiquette, warm beer, and tea.
So I’m disappointed in the demise of the knife. Hopefully, like the pocket, it will make a comeback. Meantime, I suppose you could carry your own. That would be a pocket-knife, right?
Just don’t try to fly with it.
Jenn
