Formal Suit Quotes

...and motioned me toward a spot next to a middle-aged Moroi in a very formal and very designer black suit. The suit screamed, I'm sorry the queen is dead, and I'm going to look fashionable while showing my grief

Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.

We followed him through the wealthy splendor of the house. Hardwood floors. Custom carved woodworking. Statues. Fountains. Suits of armor. Original painting, one of them a van Gogh. Stained-glass windows. Household staff in formal uniform. I kept expecting to come across a flock of peacocks roaming the halls, or maybe a pet cheetah in a diamond-studded collar.

MOST NATIONS HAVE AT ONE TIME OR OTHER BOTH condoned and practiced slavery. Greece and Rome founded their societies on it. India and Japan handled this state of affairs by creating untouchable classes which continue to this day. Arabia clung to formal slavery longer than most, while black countries like Ethiopia and Burundi were notorious. In the New World each colonial power devised a system precisely suited to its peculiar needs and in conformance with its national customs. The

. . . and then the other op-er-at-or told the formal in-stee-gay-tor that his suit could not be heard the very

. . . and then the other op-er-at-or told the formal in-stee-gay-tor that his suit could not be heard the very thought was quite absurd . . .

I had this whole world of creativity inside of me, but I wasn’t able to use any of it. I felt like I was almost choking on my own creativity because I had to be in a suit and tie and very formal. Everything was black and white, and I needed some color in my life.

What did reality have to do with anything anyway? Quentin hated reality. Reality was sweaty and ugly. It was deodorant stains on black clothing and cold sore cream and utility bills. It was fake girlfriends and formal dinners in ill-fitting suits. It was his father lecturing him in broken English about being a man. It was all of Poland, that rundown junk shop of a country, with its stray dogs and secret forests where men fucked each other in the dark and then went home to their wives. No, Quentin wanted fantasy , which was exactly why he was going to the orgy that night.

In a plot that smacks of James Bond (and has all the hallmarks of an Elliott ruse), a Dutch agent named Peter Tazelaar was put ashore near the seafront casino at Scheveningen, wearing full evening dress and covered with a rubber suit to keep him dry. Once ashore, Tazelaar peeled off his outer suit and began to “mingle with the crowd on the front” in his dinner jacket, which had been sprinkled with brandy to reinforce the “party-goer’s image.” Formally dressed and alcoholically perfumed, Tazelaar successfully made it past the German guards and picked up a radio previously dropped by parachute. The echo of 007 may not be coincidental: among the young blades of British intelligence at this time was a young officer in naval intelligence named Ian Fleming, the future author of the James Bond books. Ian Fleming and Nicholas Elliott had both experienced the trauma of being educated at Durnford School; they became close friends.

The typical Savings and Loan president was a leader in a tiny community. He was the sort of fellow who sponsored a float in the town parade; that said it all, didn’t it? He wore polyester suits, made a five-figure income, and worked one-figure hours. He belonged to the Lions or Rotary Club, and also to a less formal group known within the “thrift”* industry as the 3–6–3 Club: he borrowed money at 3 per cent, lent money at 6 per cent, and arrived on the golf course by 3 in the afternoon. *

The larger of the two - and he was quite large, well over six feet - was dark-haired, with a square jaw and coarse, pale skin. He might have been handsome had his features been less set, or his eyes, behind the glasses, less expressionless and blank. He wore dark English suits and carried an umbrella (a bizarre sight in Hampden) and he walked stiffly through the throngs of hippies an beatniks and preppies and punks with the self-conscious formality of an old ballerina, surprising in one so large as he. "Henry Winter," said my friends when I pointed him out, at a distance, making a wide circle to avoid a group of bongo players on the lawn.

Now where's this artist?" His eyes darted around the room, landed on Gennie and clung. She thought she saw surprise, quickly veiled, then amusement as quickly suppressed, tug at the corners of his mouth. "Daniel MacGregor," Grant said with wry formality. "Genvieve Grandeau." A flicker of recognition ran across Daniel's face before he rose to his rather amazing height and held out his hand. "Welcome." Gennie's hand was clasped, then enveloped. She had simultaneous impressions of strength, compassion, and stubbornness. "You have a magnificent home, Mr. MacGregor," she said, studying him candidly. "It suits you." He gave a great bellow of a laugh that might have shook the windows. "Aye.And three if your paintings hang in the west wing." His eyes slid briefly to Grant's before they came back to hers. "You carry your age well, lass." She gave him a puzzled look as Grant choked over his Scotch. "Thank you." "Get the artist a drink," he ordered, then gestured for her to sit in the chair next to his. "Now, tell me why you're wasting your time with a Campbell." "Gennie happens to be a cousin of mine," Justin said mildly as he sat on the sofa beside his son. "On the aristocratic French side." "A cousin." Daniel's eys sharpened, then an expression that could only be described as cunning pleasure spread over his face. "Aye,we like to keep things in the family. Grandeau-a good strong name.You've the look of a queen, with a bit of sorceress thrown in." "That was meant as a compliment," Serena told her as she handed Gennie a vermouth in crystal. "So I've been told." Gennie sent Grant an easy look over the rim of her glass. "One of my ancestors had an-encounter with a gypsy resulting in twins." "Gennie has a pirate in her family tree as well," Justin put in. Daniel nooded in approval. "Strong blood. The Campbells need all the help they can get." "Watch it,MacGregor," Shelby warned as Grant gave him a brief, fulminating look.

Finally, in late May or early June our breathlessly anticipated gilt-edged invitation to the July 29 wedding arrived. Soon after, we received a silver-edged card inviting us to a private formal ball at Buckingham Palace two nights before the wedding. We had been expecting the first invitation but were totally surprised by the second one. For both invitations, we had to reply to the Lord Chamberlain, Saint James’s Palace, London, SW1. For the wedding, dress was specified as: Uniform, Morning Dress or Lounge Suit. For the ball, dress was: Uniform or Evening Dress. Tiaras Optional. We had no idea what a “lounge suit” was, nor did I have a tiara handy—fortunately tiaras were optional. Help!

He was wearing a suit that appeared to have been constructed by 1) Dressing him in a blouse with twenty-foot long sleeves of the most expensive linen. 2) Bunching the sleeves up in numerous overlapping gathers on his arms. 3) Painting most of him in glue. 4) Shaking and rolling him in a bin containing thousands of black silk doilies. 5) (because king Charles II, who’d mandated a few years earlier that all courtiers wear black and white, was getting bored with it, but had not formally rescinded the order) adding dashes of color here and there primarily in the form of clusters of elaborately gathered and knotted ribbons, enough ribbon all told to stretch all the way to whatever shop in Paris where the Earl had bought all of this stuff.

hotel where their relationship had finally been consummated. The Hôtel du Cap was one of the most beautiful, exclusive, and illustrious hotels in Europe, with prices to match. The main building had marble halls, high ceilings, and magnificent rooms and suites, most of them looking out at the sea shimmering like glass. There was an impressive outdoor staircase leading down to the even more exclusive Eden Roc, with gardens on either side of the wide path and closer to the water. It was the vacation spot for aristocrats, royalty, the immensely rich, and in recent years jet-setters, Russian tycoons, and movie stars, many of whom preferred to stay at the less formal lower building, with smaller but still elegantly appointed suites, and even better views of the sea from their balconies. There

No subject was more perfectly suited to the loosened formal framework and swift juxtaposition of disparate elements that marked his ‘totally chromatic’ style; and it is generally agreed that in this Representation of (mental) Chaos that style found its most impressive outlet. But a representation is not a transcription. The music itself is not chaotic. There is a willed unity of atmosphere, created through a myriad intensely visualized details, which could only be achieved under iron control. Paradoxically, this is probably the direct result of the spontaneity and intensity with which Schoenberg must have been composing in order to have created the work in such a short space of time. The monodrama possesses no clearly defined structure, ranging so freely and juxtaposing lyricism, violence, and Angstridden terror in such uncompromising combination that it attains an effect of continuous high-pressure improvisation; yet it combines this with a powerful sense of continuity and tragic inevitability. That

Two days later, I started my job. My job involved typing friendly letters full of happy lies to dying children. I wasn't allowed to touch my computer keyboard. I had to press the keys with a pair of Q-tips held by tweezers -- one pair of tweezers in each hand. I’m sorry -- that was a metaphor. My job involved using one of those photo booths to take strips of four photographs of myself. The idea was to take one picture good enough to put on a driver’s license, and to be completely satisfied with it, knowing I had infinite retries and all the time in the world, and that I was getting paid for it. I’d take the photos and show them to the boss, and he would help me think of reasons the photos weren't good enough. I’d fill out detailed reports between retakes. We weren't permitted to recycle the outtakes, so I had to scan them, put them on eBay, arrange a sale, and then ship them out to the buyer via FedEx. FedEx came once every three days, at either ten minutes till noon or five minutes after six. I’m sorry -- that was a metaphor, too. My job involved blowing ping-pong balls across long, narrow tables using three-foot-long bendy straws. At the far end of the table was a little wastebasket. My job was to get the ping-pong ball into that wastebasket, using only the bendy straw and my lungs. Touching the straw to the ping-pong ball was grounds for a talking-to. If the ping-pong ball fell off the side of the table, or if it missed the wastebasket, I had to get on my computer and send a formal request to commit suicide to Buddha himself. I would then wait patiently for his reply, which was invariably typed while very stoned, and incredibly forgiving. Every Friday, an hour before Quitting Time, I'd put on a radiation suit. I'd lift the wastebaskets full of ping-pong balls, one at a time, and deposit them into drawstring garbage bags. I'd tie the bags up, stack them all on a pallet, take them down to the incinerator in the basement, and watch them all burn. Then I'd fill out, by hand, a one-page form re: how the flames made me feel. "Sad" was an acceptable response; "Very Sad" was not.

Ballad" Oh dream, why do you do me this way? Again, with the digging, again with the digging up. Once more with the shovels. Once more, the shovels full of dirt. The vault lid. The prying. The damp boards. Mother beside me. Like she’s an old hat at this. Like all she’s got left is curiosity. Like curiosity didn’t kill the red cat. Such a sweet, gentle cat it was. Here we go again, dream. Mother, wearing her take-out-the-garbage coat. I haven’t seen that coat in years. The coat she wore to pick me up from school early. She appeared at the back of the classroom, early. Go with your mother, teacher said. Diane, you are excused. I was a little girl. Already a famous actress. I looked at the other kids. I acted lucky. Though everyone knows what an early pick-up means. An early pick-up, dream. What’s wrong, I asked my mother. It is early spring. Bright sunlight. The usual birds. Air, teetering between bearable and unbearable. Cold, but not cold enough to shiver. Still, dream, I shiver. You know, my mother said. Her long garbage coat flying. There was a wind, that day. A wind like a scurrying grandmother, dusting. Look inside yourself, my mother said. You know why I have come for you. And still I acted lucky. Lucky to be out. Lucky to be out in the cold world with my mother. I’m innocent, I wanted to say. A little white girl, trying out her innocence. A white lamb, born into a cold field. Frozen almost solid. Brought into the house. Warmed all night with hair dryers. Death? I said. Smiling. Lucky. We’re barely to the parking lot. Barely to the car ride home. But the classroom already feels like the distant past. Long ago, my classmates pitying me. Arriving at this car full of uncles. Were they wearing suits? Death such a formal occasion. My sister, angry-crying next to me. Me, encountering a fragment of evil in myself. Evilly wanting my mother to say it. What? I asked, smiling. My lamb on full display at the fair. He’s dead! my sister said. Hit me in the gut with her flute. Her flute case. Her rental flute. He’s dead! Our father. Our father, who we were not supposed to know had been dying. He’s dead! The flute gleaming in its red case. Here, my mother said at home. She’d poured us each a small glass of Pepsi We normally couldn’t afford Pepsi. Lucky, I acted. He’s no longer suffering, my mother said. Here, she said. Drink this. The little bubbles flew. They bit my tongue. My evil persisted. What is death? I asked. And now, dream, once more you bring me my answer. Dig, my mother says. Pry, she says. I don’t want to see, dream. The lid so damp it crumbles under my hands. The casket just a drawerful of bones. A drawerful. Just bones and teeth. That one tooth he had. Crooked like mine.

Eleven people have been killed as a result of violence targeted at abortion providers: four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, a police officer, a clinic escort, and two others. Anti-abortion extremists are considered a domestic terrorist threat by the U.S. Department of Justice. Yet violence is not the only threat to abortion clinics. In the past five years, politicians have passed more than 280 laws restricting access to abortion. In 2016, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that would have required every abortion clinic to have a surgical suite, and doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital in case of complications. For many clinics, these requirements were cost prohibitive and would have forced them to close. Also, since many abortion doctors fly in to do their work, they aren’t able to get admitting privileges at local hospitals. It is worth noting that less than 0.3 percent of women who have an abortion require hospitalization due to complications. In fact colonoscopies, liposuction, vasectomies…and childbirth—all of which are performed outside of surgical suites—have higher risks of death. In Indiana in 2016, Mike Pence signed a law to ban abortion based on fetal disability and required providers to give information about perinatal hospice—keeping the fetus in utero until it dies of natural causes. This same law required aborted fetuses to be cremated or given a formal burial even if the mother did not wish this to happen.

There is safety in learning doctrine in gatherings which are sponsored by proper authority. Some members, even some who have made covenants in the temple, are associating with groups of one kind or another which have an element of secrecy about them and which pretend to have some higher source of inspiration concerning the fulfillment of prophecies than do ward or stake leaders or the General Authorities of the Church. Know this: There are counterfeit revelations which, we are warned, “if possible . . . shall deceive the very elect, who are the elect according to the covenant.” (JS—M 1:22.) . . . For the past several years we have watched patterns of reverence and irreverence in the Church. While many are to be highly commended, we are drifting. We have reason to be deeply concerned. The world grows increasingly noisy. Clothing and grooming and conduct are looser and sloppier and more disheveled. Raucous music, with obscene lyrics blasted through amplifiers while lights flash psychedelic colors, characterizes the drug culture. Variations of these things are gaining wide acceptance and influence over our youth. . . . This trend to more noise, more excitement, more contention, less restraint, less dignity, less formality is not coincidental nor innocent nor harmless. The first order issued by a commander mounting a military invasion is the jamming of the channels of communication of those he intends to conquer. Irreverence suits the purposes of the adversary by obstructing the delicate channels of revelation in both mind and spirit.

headquarters permanently to Rome. Rome was at the center of world affairs, as it was also the center of world corruption. Where else could be better suited—especially now that Monteriggioni was no longer a viable option? He also had plans for a system of distribution of the Brotherhood’s funds in response to individual Assassins’ successfully completed missions. Those diamonds he’d taken from the slave traders had come in very handy, a welcome addition to the campaign fund. One day… But “one day” was still a long way off. The Brotherhood still had no new elected leader, though by common consent and by virtue of their actions, he and Machiavelli had become its temporary chiefs. But they were still only temporary. Nothing had been ratified in formal council. And Caterina preyed on his mind. He had left Claudia to oversee the renovation of the Rosa in Fiore without any supervision or interference. Let her sink or swim in her own overweening confidence! It’d be no fault of his if she sank. But the brothel was an important link in his network, and he admitted to himself that if he really had had absolutely no faith in her, he might have leaned on her harder in the first place. Now was the time to put her work—what she had achieved—to the test. When he returned to the Rosa in Fiore, he was as surprised as he was pleased. Just as successful, he hoped, as his own previous transformations in the city, and at Bartolomeo’s barracks, had been (though even for those he was modest and realistic enough not to take all the credit). But he hid his delight as he took in the sumptuous rooms hung with costly tapestries, the wide sofas, the soft silk cushions, and the white wines chilled with ice—an

the device had the property of transresistance and should have a name similar to devices such as the thermistor and varistor, Pierce proposed transistor. Exclaimed Brattain, “That’s it!” The naming process still had to go through a formal poll of all the other engineers, but transistor easily won the election over five other options.35 On June 30, 1948, the press gathered in the auditorium of Bell Labs’ old building on West Street in Manhattan. The event featured Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain as a group, and it was moderated by the director of research, Ralph Bown, dressed in a somber suit and colorful bow tie. He emphasized that the invention sprang from a combination of collaborative teamwork and individual brilliance: “Scientific research is coming more and more to be recognized as a group or teamwork job. . . . What we have for you today represents a fine example of teamwork, of brilliant individual contributions, and of the value of basic research in an industrial framework.”36 That precisely described the mix that had become the formula for innovation in the digital age. The New York Times buried the story on page 46 as the last item in its “News of Radio” column, after a note about an upcoming broadcast of an organ concert. But Time made it the lead story of its science section, with the headline “Little Brain Cell.” Bell Labs enforced the rule that Shockley be in every publicity photo along with Bardeen and Brattain. The most famous one shows the three of them in Brattain’s lab. Just as it was about to be taken, Shockley sat down in Brattain’s chair, as if it were his desk and microscope, and became the focal point of the photo. Years later Bardeen would describe Brattain’s lingering dismay and his resentment of Shockley: “Boy, Walter hates this picture. . . . That’s Walter’s equipment and our experiment,

In 1931, amid that incredible transformation, a brilliant young Russian psychologist named Alexander Luria recognized a fleeting “natural experiment,” unique in the history of the world. He wondered if changing citizens’ work might also change their minds. When Luria arrived, the most remote villages had not yet been touched by the warp-speed restructuring of traditional society. Those villages gave him a control group. He learned the local language and brought fellow psychologists to engage villagers in relaxed social situations—teahouses or pastures—and discuss questions or tasks designed to discern their habits of mind. Some were very simple: present skeins of wool or silk in an array of hues and ask participants to describe them. The collective farmers and farm leaders, as well as the female students, easily picked out blue, red, and yellow, sometimes with variations, like dark blue or light yellow. The most remote villagers, who were still “premodern,” gave more diversified descriptions: cotton in bloom, decayed teeth, a lot of water, sky, pistachio. Then they were asked to sort the skeins into groups. The collective farmers, and young people with even a little formal education, did so easily, naturally forming color groups. Even when they did not know the name of a particular color, they had little trouble putting together darker and lighter shades of the same one. The remote villagers, on the other hand, refused, even those whose work was embroidery. “It can’t be done,” they said, or, “None of them are the same, you can’t put them together.” When prodded vigorously, and only if they were allowed to make many small groups, some relented and created sets that were apparently random. A few others appeared to sort the skeins according to color saturation, without regard to the color. Geometric shapes followed suit. The greater the dose of modernity, the more likely an individual grasped the abstract concept of “shapes” and made groups of triangles, rectangles, and circles, even if they had no formal education and did not know the shapes’ names. The remote villagers, meanwhile, saw nothing alike in a square drawn with solid lines and the same exact square drawn with dotted lines. To Alieva, a twenty-six-year-old remote villager, the solid-line square was obviously a map, and the dotted-line square was a watch. “How can a map and a watch be put together?” she asked, incredulous. Khamid, a twenty-four-year-old remote villager, insisted that filled and unfilled circles could not go together because one was a coin and the other a moon.

One of the women leaped up from her chair. She seemed to grow taller as she stood. Her long diamond earrings not only caught the sun and blinded you, but jangled and knocked against her cheekbones with a sharp tapping sound. ‘Curse those who cursed it!’ she cried, flinging her arms wildly about her, in a way that didn’t at all suit her formal attire.

I put on a suit, then changed into a jeans and a checked shirt, then thought 'to hell with it!' and got into my shorts and a black T-shirt with an inscription that said: 'My friend was clinically dead, but all he brought me from the next world was this T-shirt!' I might look like a German tourist, but at least I would retain the semblance of a holiday mood in front of Gesar.

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Now secular education is universal. So now we must include in formal education of our youth some teaching of compassion and basic ethics, not on the basis of religious belief but on the basis of scientific findings and our common sense and our universal experience. Just complaining about the present situation is not much help. It is very difficult to deal with our current world crises because of our basic mentality. As you mentioned, your father was usually a very good man, but when he was drunk he behaved badly. Today I think many human beings are drunk. They have too many negative emotions like greed, fear, and anger dominating their minds. So they act like drunk people. “The only way out of this drunken stupor is to educate children about the value of compassion and the value of applying our mind. We need a long-term approach rooted in a vision to address our collective global challenges. This would require a fundamental shift in human consciousness, something only education is best suited to achieve. Time never waits. So I think it is very important that we start now. Then maybe the new generation will be in a position to solve these global problems in their lifetime.

The greatest proof of my status is my uniform. Every single day I go to class in clothing that many men wear only once in their lives, if at all: a morning suit, identical to the clothing of a bridegroom. It consists of a black tailcoat, a black waistcoat under which I wear a white shirt with a starched collar and thin white cotton tie, a pair of black pinstriped trousers and black shoes. By the time my teens are over, I will have worn one of the smartest outfits in anyone's wardrobe hundreds of times. The effect of this is that, when I put on a business suit for work or any formal occasion, I look as relaxed as if I am wearing a pair of pyjamas.

Reality was sweaty and ugly. It was deodorant stains on black clothing and cold sore cream and utility bills. It was fake girlfriends and formal dinners in ill-fitting suits. It was his father lecturing him in broken English about being a man. It was all of Poland, that run-down junk shop of a country, with its stray dogs and secret forests where men fucked each other in the dark and then went

Such pathetic Lives they lead, Erasmus thought, without formal education or awareness. But even the lowliest of them might possess the tremendous potential to be a great human genius. Lack of opportunities did not necessarily make an individual stupid, but only shifted his intelligence to a form suited to survival rather than creativity.

Versatility is another hallmark of Beaumont Pictures' outerwear collection. Whether you're dressing for a casual outing or a formal event, there's a piece in their collection to suit every occasion. Their timeless designs seamlessly transition from day to night, ensuring that you always look effortlessly chic, regardless of the setting.

this book is intended to be neither an exhaustive commentary on the Gospels, nor a compendium of miscellaneous facts. Rather, the work is designed to be an instructional Guide—an illustrated, authoritative reference work, equally suited as a tool for personal study or as assigned reading in a formal classroom situation.

Lucas had cleaned up well, even shaved his perpetual five o’clock shadow. His long hair was combed back from his face. The hairstyle, combined with the formal suit, gave him the look of a nineteenth-century nobleman. His eyes met hers, pulling her in—a solid lifeline in what felt like a turbulent storm.

Once Alex enters the room, I forget I’m even hungry and nearly drop my plate. A helpful servant scoops it up from my hands. I see him in profile, his long lean body in stark shades of black and white: knee-high socks, dark, well-fitted pants, a jacket the color of midnight, and a snowy-white cravat as pressed and starched as ever. I’d think he looked entirely too formal, except my own dress is at least as fancy. Today, it’s appropriate. As much as it would be great to see him in a T-shirt, jeans, and ball cap, the formal attire simply suits him. He surveys the room as the others take notice of his presence, but before they can bombard him, his eyes sweep across to me and then stop. His lips give way to the slightest of smiles, and then he’s heading straight toward me, leaving a gaggle of disappointed faces in his wake. “Do I look okay?” I whisper to Emily, unable to take my eyes off of him long enough to check. She squeezes my hand. “You look…” “Stunning,” Alex finishes as he arrives in front of me. “Your Grace,” I say, for the first time, and curtsy. He looks amused that I’ve addressed him so formally. “My lady.” He bows, a deeper bow than I’ve ever seen him do. I rise and look him in the eye again. “I thought you said I wasn’t a lady.” He smirks. “I thought you said you were.” We smile at one another, and the room fades around me. “Save the next dance?” I nod. “Wonderful. I shall find you then.” And then he leaves me with Emily, and I finally know what a swoon is as I grab her elbow. “I thought he might ravish you right here on the floor,” she says with a giggle. “Emily!” “What?” And then I can’t help it; I burst into a fit of giggles with her, until my sides ache and I can hardly breathe. A few guests stare as they pass us--I’m betting such behavior is frowned upon--but I find that I don’t even care. It’s been so long since I’ve had a friend who made me feel like I could be myself. Ironic, since I’m Rebecca here, but it’s still invigorating and exhilarating, and all we’re doing is standing here laughing like total lunatics. It’s definitely against Victoria’s Rules for Proper Young Ladies. But I don’t care. I am me. Whether that is someone they like or someone they despise, I am who I am, and that’s the truth. When have I ever been this sure of myself? “Is everything all right?” Emily stops giggling. “Yes. I--” I pause, taking a breath. “I’m…better than all right.” I glance around at the beautiful, sparkling ballroom and then back at Emily’s smiling face. “I’m perfect.

H. G. Wells once observed that the English were unique among the nations of the world in having no national dress. He was wrong—and wrong in a telling way. The national dress of the English—a suit and tie—has ceased to seem English, because it is worn all over the planet. On formal occasions, men in most countries dress as Englishmen; the rest of the time they dress, for the most part, as Americans, in jeans.

Meredith Etherington-Smith Meredith Etherington-Smith became an editor of Paris Vogue in London and GQ magazine in the United States during the 1970s. During the 1980s, she served as deputy and features editor of Harpers & Queen magazine and has since become a leading art critic. Currently, she is editor in chief of Christie’s magazine. She is also a noted artist biographer; her book on Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, was an international bestseller and was translated into a dozen languages. Her drawing room that morning was much like any comfortable, slightly formal drawing room to be found in country houses throughout England: the paintings, hung on pale yellow walls, were better; the furniture, chintz-covered; the flowers, natural garden bouquets. It was charming. And so was she, as she swooped in from a room beyond. I had never seen pictures of her without any makeup, with just-washed hair and dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. She looked more vital, more beautiful, than any photograph had ever managed to convey. She was, in a word, staggering; here was the most famous woman in the world up close, relaxed, funny, and warm. The tragic Diana, the royal Diana, the wronged Diana: a clever, interesting person who wasn’t afraid to say she didn’t know how an auction sale worked, and would it be possible to work with me on it? “Of course, ma’am,” I said. “It’s your sale, and if you would like, then we’ll work on it together to make the most money we can for your charities.” “So what do we do next?” she asked me. “First, I think you had better choose the clothes for sale.” The next time I saw her drawing room, Paul Burrell, her butler, had wheeled in rack after rack of jeweled, sequined, embroidered, and lacy dresses, almost all of which I recognized from photographs of the Princess at some state event or gala evening. The visible relics of a royal life that had ended. The Princess, in another pair of immaculately pressed jeans and a stripy shirt, looked so different from these formal meringues that it was almost laughable. I think at that point the germ of an idea entered my mind: that sometime, when I had gotten to know her better and she trusted me, I would like to see photographs of the “new” Princess Diana--a modern woman unencumbered by the protocol of royal dress. Eventually, this idea led to putting together the suite of pictures of this sea-change princess with Mario Testino. I didn’t want her to wear jewels; I wanted virtually no makeup and completely natural hair. “But Meredith, I always have people do my hair and makeup,” she explained. “Yes ma’am, but I think it is time for a change--I want Mario to capture your speed, and electricity, the real you and not the Princess.” She laughed and agreed, but she did turn up at the historic shoot laden with her turquoise leather jewel boxes. We never opened them. Hair and makeup took ten minutes, and she came out of the dressing room looking breathtaking. The pictures are famous now; they caused a sensation at the time. My favorite memory of Princess Diana is when I brought the work prints round to Kensington Palace for her to look at. She was so keen to see them that she raced down the stairs and grabbed them. She went silent for a moment or two as she looked at these vivid, radiant images. Then she turned to me and said, “But these are really me. I’ve been set free and these show it. Don’t you think,” she asked me, “that I look a bit like Marilyn Monroe in some of them?” And laughed.

To be allowed even one color plate in these rather stiff formal articles consisting largely of long scientific names, tables of measurements, fin counts, descriptions of viscera, ect., gives me a feeling of aesthetic release that perhaps the conservative businessman feels when he tops off a dull gray suit and plain white shirt with a red tie.

This is worse than if we’d been happened upon by strangers.” “Your mother and sister will never mention what they saw if you don’t want them to, Eve.” Eve studied his profile and saw he believed this made a difference. “They will never mention it in any case, though Her Grace will likely tell Papa. That they know makes a difference, Lucas. To me.” “To me as well. I am formally renewing my proposal for your hand in marriage, Evie. Don’t hog the butter.” “I am refusing your suit, though you do me great—don’t you hog the jam.” “You want a white marriage. I cannot give you that. The responsibility for the succession lies with me, despite Anthony’s willingness to step in, if necessary. I wonder if your father will call me out.” He

I'm sorry, sir, but we have a dress code," said the official. I knew about this. It was in bold type on the website: Gentlemen are required to wear a jacket. "No jacket, no food, correct?" "More or less, sir." What can I say about this sort of rule? I was prepared to keep my jacket on throughout the meal. The restaurant would presumably be air-conditioned to a temperature compatible with the requirement. I continued toward the restaurant entrance, but the official blocked my path. "I'm sorry. Perhaps I wasn't clear. You need to wear a jacket." "I'm wearing a jacket." "I'm afraid we require something a little more formal, sir." The hotel employee indicated his own jacket as an example. In defense of what followed, I submit the Oxford English Dictionary (Compact, 2nd Edition) definition of jacket:1(a) An outer garment for the upper part of the body. I also note that the word jacket appears on the care instructions for my relatively new and perfectly clean Gore-Tex jacket. But it seemed his definition of jacket was limited to "conventional suit jacket." " We would be happy to lend you one, sir. In this style." "You have a supply of jacket? In every possible size?" I did not add that the need to maintain such an inventory was surely evidence of their failure to communicate the rule clearly, and that it would be more efficient to improve their wording or abandon the rule altogether. Nor did I mention that the cost of jacket purchase and cleaning must add to the price of their meals. Did their customers know that they were subsidizing a jacket warehouse?

Simon's gaze wandered over the drifts of lace and muslin that covered her body. Still dressed in his formal black wedding suit, he approached her slowly and came to stand before her as she remained sitting in the chair. To her surprise, he lowered to his knees to bring their faces level, his thighs bracketing her slender calves. A large hand lifted to the shimmering fall of her hair, and he combed his fingers through it, watching with fascination as the golden brown strands slipped across his knuckles. Although Simon was immaculately dressed, there were signs of dishevelment that lured her attention... the short forelocks of his hair falling over his forehead, the loosened knot of his ice gray silk cravat. Dropping the brush to the floor, Annabelle used her fingers to smooth his hair in a tentative stroke. The sable filaments were thick and gleaming, springing willfully against her fingertips. Simon held still for her as she untied the cravat, the heavy silk saturated with the warmth of his skin. His eyes contained an expression that caused a ticklish sensation in the pit of her stomach. "Every time I see you," he murmured. "I think you couldn't possibly become any more beautiful- and you always prove me wrong.

His attire was not something to be dismissed casually. It was what he happened to be wearing when he died. Mr. Wiggam must have died wearing his formal dinner suit but it seemed Mr. Beaufort—Jacob—had been somewhat more casually dressed. It's the reason why I'll never sleep naked.

Certain moments from that week do stand out in my mind. I remember Malia and Sasha and three of Joe’s granddaughters rolling around on a pile of air mattresses in our hotel suite, all of them giggling, lost in their secret games and wholly indifferent to the hoopla below. I remember Hillary stepping up to the microphone representing the New York delegates and formally making the motion to vote me in as the Democratic nominee, a powerful gesture of unity. And I remember sitting in the living room of a very sweet family of supporters in Missouri, making small talk and munching on snacks before Michelle appeared on the television screen, luminescent in an aquamarine dress, to deliver the convention’s opening night address.

I stood up and... there he was. My new roommate, standing right in front of me. He looked like he'd just stepped out from a magazine photo shoot, his hair artfully tousled and falling perfectly over his forehead. He was standing much closer to me than he had when I'd toured his apartment, and he seemed to notice that, too, his eyes widening and nostrils flaring a little as though he was breathing me in. He was dressed even more formally than he'd been the night I'd met him, adding a red silk ascot and black top hat to the charcoal-gray three-piece suit that fit like the gods had made it specifically for him. It was an odd look, to be sure. But--- god help me--- it worked. My mouth watered for reasons having nothing to do with hunger. If he noticed how overwhelmed I was by his appearance, he showed no sign of it. He simply frowned, brow furrowed in concern. He stepped a little closer. He smelled like fabric softener, the citrus fruit he'd put in my bedroom, and something deep and mysterious I had no name for.

He was class itself, a real movie actor, born to the tuxedo. I’d never seen anyone look better in a formal suit, and he seemed right at home in this hall of mirrors.

Frederick looked great in the parade of old-fashioned suits I'd seen in since we'd met, of course. More than great. But I realized now that his consistently too-formal, out-of-date attire served as a constant reminder to me that Frederick was out of my league in every imaginable way--- and completely off-limits. Untouchable. And other. Now, though... "What do you think?" he asked. "Do I look like I fit in with modern society now?" With difficulty, I tore my eyes from the broad expanse of his chest now covered in a forest-green Henley that fit him like a glove and met his gaze. He was fidgeting a little as I looked back at him, drumming his fingertips against his upper thigh again, looking at me with a nervous intensity that stole the breath from my lungs. I let my eyes trail slowly down his body, drinking him in, taking in his new shirt and the dark blue jeans that fit him so well you wouldn't have guessed he'd had no idea what size he was twenty minutes ago. The other jeans he'd tried on lay folded in a pile on the chair beside him; his suit hung neatly on a hanger in the dressing room. I focused on these other details to distract myself from how Frederick not only looked just as hot in more casual clothes as he did in his stuffy suits, but also how he now looked attainable in a way that was dangerous to me, specifically. I had to avert my eyes. Looking right at him felt a little too much like looking directly at the sun. "You look great. You look unbelievable, actually." I heard his sharp intake of breath, only then realizing that that hadn't quite been what he'd asked me. All he'd asked was whether he looked like he fit in. My stomach swooped, my face suddenly feeling like it was on fire. Idiot. "That is... that is to say---" "You think I look great?" He was looking at me with an expression that felt somewhere between surprise and pleasure. He stepped from the dressing room, stopping when he was only a few inches away from me. I took an involuntary breath, breathing in the scent of lavender soap and new clothes that clung to him.

Hierarchies are best suited for situations that require tight control of production, information, or resources, such as manufacturers or large bureaucracies that exist in universities, governments, and militaries. Hierarchies are robust and inflexible, requiring formal rules, standard operating procedures, and a chain of command. In contrast, networks are resilient and adaptable, requiring flexibility and horizontal flows of information. Healthy startup communities rely upon unencumbered information flows organized in network-based structures. Conversely, they suffocate under hierarchical control.

All I have I would have given, gladly, not to be standing here today.” The chamber became hushed. He had struck exactly the right note of sorrowful humility. It was a good start, George thought. Johnson continued in the same vein, speaking with slow dignity. If he felt the impulse to rush, he was controlling it firmly. He wore a dark-blue suit and tie, and a shirt with a tab-fastened collar, a style considered formal in the South. He looked occasionally from one side to the other, speaking to the whole of the chamber and at the same time seeming to command it. Echoing Martin Luther King, he talked of dreams: Kennedy’s dreams of conquering space, of education for all children, of the Peace Corps. “This is our challenge,” he said. “Not to hesitate, not to pause, not to turn about and linger over this evil moment, but to continue on our course so that we may fulfill the destiny that history has set for us.” He had to stop, then, because of the applause. Then he said: “Our most immediate tasks are here on this hill.” This was the crunch. Capitol Hill, where Congress sat, had been at war with the president for most of 1963. Congress had the power to delay legislation, and used it often, even when the president had campaigned and won public support for his plans. But since John Kennedy announced his civil rights bill they had gone on strike, like a factory full of militant workers, delaying everything, mulishly refusing to pass even routine bills, scorning public opinion and the democratic process. “First,” said Johnson, and George held his breath while he waited to hear what the new president would put first. “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.” George leaped to his feet, clapping for joy. He was not the only one: the applause burst out again, and this time went on longer than previously. Johnson waited for it to die down, then said: “We have talked long enough in this country about civil rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time, now, to write the next chapter—and to write it in the books of law.” They applauded again. Euphoric, George looked at the few black faces in the chamber: five Negro congressmen, including Gus Hawkins of California, who actually looked white; Mr. and Mrs. Wright in the presidential box, clapping; a scatter of dark faces among the spectators in the gallery. Their expressions showed relief, hope, and gladness. Then his eye fell on the rows of seats behind the cabinet, where the senior senators sat, most of them Southerners, sullen and resentful. Not a single one was joining in the applause. •

A notable few seconds of silence ensued before she heard a man speak. "What a delightful coincidence." Startled by the familiar voice, she turned around to find herself gazing upon Martin, of all people, standing in his own open doorway, his hand still upon the knob. He wore formal evening attire- a black suit with a white waistcoat and bow tie made of the finest silk money could buy. His hair was thick and shiny black like wicked midnight, falling in attractive waves to his broad shoulders. His blue eyes were heavy-lidded and openly sensual.

After shaving and showering and throwing on fresh jeans and a white T-shirt, I left my trailer around 8:30 p.m. and headed towards the lake trail. The setting sun was a soft fiery red and the sky was streaked with purple gashes. The surface of the lake was perfect, pinkish-silver calm glass, and as I walked down to the edge of the lake I thought of Johnny’s comment about “our bench.” With the street lights sparkling uphill to my right, and the smooth lake surface on my left, and the brushed concrete trail under me, I felt like I was approaching an intersection point in the setting Johnny had created for Vermilion Lake. It took about ten minutes to see the bench in the distance and a person sitting there. As I got closer, I saw Johnny, but she looked different. She had come to the bench straight from a late meeting with Will New, and she was dressed in a formal dark-blue business suit with jacket and knee-length skirt. She was wearing a stark-white buttoned blouse and her bare legs were slipped into black high heels. Her red hair was up in an extremely formal looking bun without a strand free. I’d not seen her with glasses the night before and she looked very scholarly. She stood up as I approached, and said, “Hi Tom,” and gave me a gentle hug. As I held her for a second against my chest I could feel her soft breasts through the layers of her suit, and the scent of her hair was beautiful, and then she stepped back and said, “Please sit down. We’ve got a lot to discuss.” The whole scene felt very different from the previous night. And from this meeting onwards I wouldn’t quite know what to make of Johnny. She was about to become a character composed of incongruous pieces, sometimes strong, sometimes fragile—almost patient-like. It was as if she had fallen apart and some force was in the process of reassembling her as a beautiful mess.

Thomas Noble wore a dinner suit, a size too big so his bad hand withdrew into the cuff. Draped behind was a silk cape, so fantastically bizarre she could not tear her eyes from it. “My father said a gentleman always sports a cape to a formal event.” “Your father is a hundred and fifty years old.” “He’s still got moves. I have to go in the backyard when they make love because the noise is deafening.” She stared at him, suitably horrified.

She made leaning look formal, and her navy trouser suit and crisp white blouse looked as if they could hold a lesser mortal upright by themselves. Her dark hair was pulled back hard and anchored with a tortoisehell clasp. The style made an aggressive display of her pale, handsome face, the creases around her eyes and mouth. It made her look as if she had nothing to hide.