A few weeks ago, thanks to my work at the Merola Opera Program, I had six days in a row of events. This meant a lot of childcare juggling and the fun and challenge of putting together six outfits for events involved a lot of the same people. In days after, catching up on sleep, email, and housework, i thought about characters like Suzanne and Cordelia, whose adventures occur amid a social whirl, whether in London, Vienna, or Paris. I don’t think I’d properly considered how exhausting those events are, quite without the added intrigue and adventures their encounter. Going out every night, choosing gowns and jewelry, and constantly needing to be “on”. Do you ever think about that when reading about characters existing in the whirl of the London (or other city) season?
Here, in pictures, is a look at my week. I managed not to repeat the same dress!
With Mélanie at my talk at Book Passage about the Merola season
snuggles after Mummy talked
With Merola participant Casey Candebat at a Merola Signature Event
With Merola alum Quinn Kelsey and my friend Amii at another event
Opening night of Merola’s production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”
With Merola alumna Maria Valdes at another event
Mélanie needing some mummy time before the Saturday “Streetcar” matinee
Tracy Grant - Novelist 
August 6, 2014 at 4:15 am
I vote for the black lace number (next to your friend’s purple outfit) as the classiest. I imagine it would be challenge to not repeat outfits, particularly when the same people are present at each event. And yes, I suspect the London “Season” would be quite difficult unless you had lots of money. Well, if you were at the Season events, you’d probably be rich anyway. But you made a more important point – being “on” for a long period of time would be exhausting. Imagine doing it in a corset…on a hot day…with headache…etc.
(Considering how hot it is here in Spokane right now, the thought of being perfect for days on end just wears me out.) I hope you and Mel have gotten some much needed rest and relaxation now that your big week is over.
August 6, 2014 at 4:32 am
Thanks, Lynne! I love that dress – it was my birthday present to myself and actually with a cardigan is surprisingly versatile – it’s gone unexpected places like board meetings and Children’s Fairyland. I’m not sure anyone would have noticed if I’d repeated outfits, but it was a fun challenge to put different outfits together. Obviously money would make the London Season much easier (my mom’s and my first Anthea Malcolm Regency was about three sisters trying to do it on a budget). But what this week made me realize was as you say the challenge of being “on”. Not to mention that even with a generous budget for gowns and jewels and a maid to help one dress and care for one’s things, there would still be the challenges of what heat does to the most carefully dressed hair, rouge melting in the candle-warmed air, flounces being trod upon, etc…I think I rather tend to take it for granted that Suzanne and Cordy are dealing with all that in the midst of an investigation. Summer is pretty crazy with Merola, but Mel and I have been having some catch up time – and I’ve been getting in some writing time.
August 10, 2014 at 11:39 am
We need to remember that Suzanne and Cordelia are both young and have lots of servants. They don’t need to go out every night, cook dinner and do all the washing as well like we do these days. It is also a matter of training. Society women were trained to “perform” in public just as actors are. Mind you, it does get harder as one gets older, so I suppose they would need to be more selective as they got older and schedule more days off.
August 11, 2014 at 3:48 am
Wow…really good points, Suz. Kind of like the Queen. She has the most exhausting schedule but she can go home and nap, if necessary. And she can trim her schedule because she has children and grand-children to take up the slack. Someone else will cook and clean. But you’re right – it is a bit like acting. Suzanne does that full time because she has secrets to hide as well as investigations to carry on.
August 12, 2014 at 2:02 am
Suzanne is acting all the time, on multiple levels. The interesting thing is that she’s trained to be a spy and investigator but she has to learn to be a society lady.
August 10, 2014 at 6:44 pm
That’s a good point, Suzanne. Although on the flip side we have a lot of modern conveniences they wouldn’t have had (and I can assure you for this entire week I did not cook dinner – one of the perks of going out so much!). I actually think I’d found a week like this more exhausting in my 20s than I do now, because I’ve learned a lot about that “social performance” that you point out a certain Regency set would have been trained for. But it’s still tiring – even the most trained actors are tired after 8 shows a week!
October 4, 2014 at 10:58 pm
[…] Fortunately, i tend to like styles that are fairly classic and I wear my clothes for years (in my recent post about my week of events, I wore dresses that ranged from brand new to six years old). Still I love the fall fashion issues […]