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Apr. 22nd, 2006 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmWalkers and It Boys -- the vague evolution of the male socialite:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/fashion/sundaystyles/23walkers.html
It's an interesting piece, although whether or more or less so depending on if you grew up around such things, I'm not sure. What it doesn't get to entirely are notions of class and freedom, how walkers needn't (and some would argue shouldn't) be as a well born as the ladies in question, since the spotlight, traditionally, hasn't been for them. Now that it increasingly is, the whole idea hints at both work (although a somewhat loose definition of it, I'll grant you) and new money being more acceptable for a socialite (although doesn't that make the definition murky? but I suppose the "celebutante" situation made that clear), and if a boy with a job can be one, what about a girl? Maybe only I, and people who have watched Metropolitan too many times, care about these questions, but they really, really interest me -- although less so for Society as it is, than for Society as it can be reimagined, in this world or any other.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/fashion/sundaystyles/23walkers.html
It's an interesting piece, although whether or more or less so depending on if you grew up around such things, I'm not sure. What it doesn't get to entirely are notions of class and freedom, how walkers needn't (and some would argue shouldn't) be as a well born as the ladies in question, since the spotlight, traditionally, hasn't been for them. Now that it increasingly is, the whole idea hints at both work (although a somewhat loose definition of it, I'll grant you) and new money being more acceptable for a socialite (although doesn't that make the definition murky? but I suppose the "celebutante" situation made that clear), and if a boy with a job can be one, what about a girl? Maybe only I, and people who have watched Metropolitan too many times, care about these questions, but they really, really interest me -- although less so for Society as it is, than for Society as it can be reimagined, in this world or any other.
