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Jane's Filmography
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Secrets to Staying Fit
Charities
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St. Catherine's Court
Meet James Keach
James' Filmography

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Jane as Artist
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PHOTO ALBUM
Just Jane

GUIDE TO ROMANTIC LIVING

Chapter Nine | Chapter Eleven

Chapter Ten: Dressing the Part: Accessorizing the Romantic Life

....Clothes are much more to me than merely the appropriate things to wear for different occasions. Instead, they are the magical garments I put on to transform myself into anyone I choose. Nor do I see make-up as just something to enhance the features. I see it as paint, and it should be used as paint: paint your face, change yourself, transform.

Playing different characters, in life or in work, is a way of finding out which is the real self. The characters I've created on film all have a little bit of me in them, and that is one reason I like to keep most of the clothes I've acted in. Collecting clothes is one of my passions. A long time ago, my great-aunt gave me her old forties clothes, and I wear them and treasure them. This was the beginning of my fascination with period clothes, of which I now have a formidable collection. My closets are full of the women I have been --- Lady Brett Ashley's flapper costumes from The Sun Also Rises, Edwardian straw hats from Somewhere in Time, casual California-girl looks from Haunting Passion, leopardskin and leather from Dark Mirror, classic forties clothes from my part as the vamp Hilary in Crossings. All these different characters are in my wardrobes. I love dressing up, creating other characters in photographs as well as on film.

Anyone can play at transformations. Wear a velvet dress and become Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind. If you've never worn red lipstick, wear it and become Rita Hayworth. If you want long hair, wear a hairpiece. Color your hair with the wash-out rinses and discover the excitement of being a redhead perhaps.

Women have become too lacking in mystery. Now is the time for romance and its companion, mystery, to return to our lives. Try veils, hats, antique jewelry, lockets. Don't reveal too easily who is in the locket: just stare moodily into the distance and smile a tender, tragic smile. Life is for fun, danger, romance: live it. Don't take your clothes off hours after meeting some man: keep them on, plenty of them, keep him guessing, keep him entranced. Be the witch woman, the temptress, the outdoor girl. Don't bore him with your down-to-earth approach to sex and love. Don't bore yourself. I'm not suggesting that clothes shouldn't be sensual. They certainly should. What they shouldn't be is obvious.

Wear long evening dresses that bare your shoulders. A long dress immediately gives a woman a pleasant feeling of vulnerability. Even the hardest, most successful careerwomen gather up a little old-fashioned vulnerability when they gather up their skirts at a grand ball.

Different ages have different styles, of course, and what suits one woman won't suit another. I have a small waist, so the age of crinolines with tiny waists and huge flouncy skirts suits me well. My wedding dress is a dress like that. I wear it in the advertisement for Le Jardin, the fragrance I help promote. They couldn't come up with anything nearly as romantic.

Romance is about being uninhibited and changing your image. People are so busy they don't think to do the unusual. We become so stuck in images and styles that we don't think to change, or perhaps we just don't have the courage to do something different. Either subtle or drastic changes can get you out of your rut and make you feel different and special.

If you always wear classic clothes, why not add an antique lace collar to your plain cardigan. It doesn't take much trouble, merely the lace collar and two safety pins.

If you never take risks, take a risk. Do something daring --- wear a slinky, black dress. First of all, go to a department store and try one on. Why not? If you don't like it, it's done you no harm. Go to shops and try on different styles. Don't be embarassed. Nobody knows you at the store. Why shouldn't you try on some outrageous clothes? But when you do go shopping, make sure you put on make-up and wear your favorite outfit, so that you only buy something better than what you have, not something awful that simply looks a bit less awful than what you have on.

Try a low waistline, beads, and a ribbon around your hair, try different styles, different ages, and see in which age you feel most comfortable. Why settle for now when you could exist in any age just by a little dressing up?

Men can dress up, too. Men are different in uniforms. They hold themselves differently. They behave differently. They become a little more mysterious. With fans, veils, long dresses, women acquire a flirtatious, feminine manner. The quest and the chase are the most exciting part of romance. Courtship is a game that if played right can lead to a lifetime of happiness. But if it's managed clumsily, too quickly, if it lacks style and a respect for the mystery of the other person, it can be meaningless and even depressing.

.....Veils are especially suitable for romantics. Even just a little veiling over a hat. Aveil provides that air of distance, of dreaminess, of perhaps some past grief. It intrigues. Sunglasses are the twentieth-century equivalent of fans and veils. People use sunglasses to hide themselves. There is a particular art to taking off sunglasses, of choosing exactly the right moment to reveal yourself.

The skill is simply to keep some part of your body, some part of yourself, hidden. A woman wrapped in a sarong is sexier than the woman wearing a...bikini. Nobody knows whether the woman in the sarong has a bikini underneath or nothing at all. It starts the imagination working, makes people wonder, be intrigued, interested.

Women should certainly lose not an inch of the position they've gained over the years. But, we must also make sure we don't lose ourselves.

Let your moods and looks control what you wear. Don't be dominated by the clothes, or decide to wear something simply because it is a beautiful dress. Too many women have walked into too many parties looking frightful because they liked a dress that didn't like them.

When you walk into a room, you don't want people saying, "Look at So-and-so --- isn't her make-up good?" You want them simply to think how beautiful you are. It's the same with acting. If the audience is saying, "Oh, look, he's a terrific actor; look how well he's acting right now," he's lost it. If the audience is crying their eyes out because they were so moved and they believed you were that person . . . that's acting.

When I first arrived in Hollywood, I was determined not simply to fit into a mold. I didn't have one pair of blue jeans. Not one. I wore peasant skirts made of Liberty cottons, which I had made myself with no pattern, just two widths of fabric at the top, four at the center, and six at the bottom. The skirts would flare out with no bulk at the waist. I love the feeling of cotton or natural fabrics next to my skin. They make me feel free, relaxed, myself.

Much of the art of being romantic is feeling yourself to be romantic, desirable, feminine. If you don't feel terrific, you won't look terrific. You won't walk tall, you won't be sultry, you won't dare flirt. Everyone knows the misery of going to parties or dinners and feeling dull and plain in clothes you didn't have time to change out of, or of wearing some marvelous dress that you are increasingly convinced is going to unzip or fall off or trip you.

Be yourself, that is the most important point, and enjoy yourself. Be comfortable.

To me, perfume is as important as dress or make-up in creating a romantic presence. It isn't that it should be noticeable. It shouldn't. You should choose a perfume that gives a man a sense of memory of you, of the whole you; you as a personality, you as a person, you as someone bewitching.

The right fragrance can transform someone's attitude toward you. Too much of it, and he'll want to sit on the other side of the room.

Don't be too liberated, too severe on yourself, to allow yourself the occasional apparently artless female trick. What is wrong with flirtatious actions? Personally, I love men to open doors, to take off my coat for me. I like them to play their role and for them to allow me my femininity.

How boring life will be if women continue to be severe on themselves, to stride up and down corridors like men, never to stoop to such tricks as my hair trick. Where is the fun? Where is the excitement? The danger, the humor?

You don't want an average, sensible, down-to-earth life any more than I do. You want something remarkable, vivacious, occasionally wicked. You want sometimes to be a temptress, a superior lady with her hair piled up, sometimes a hard-working woman of the world.

Whenever I'm in a movie now, if there is a scene where my character has to submit to the man, the producer says, "Oh, it would be wonderful if you had your hair up, took one pin out, and let it tumble down," They all come up to me as if this were a completely unique idea. I try not to smile.

Don't be afraid. Use a little flair, a little imagination. Be the dramatic figure of your dreams. Discover yourself --- live adventurously. Rent a fur coat for an evening, borrow a mink. If you've always wanted to make a grand entrance, hire the most lavish dress, the most lavish jewels, a fur coat, and make that entrance. You don't have to be rich. You don't have to be a film star, to look like a film star. Everything is within your reach, given a little ingenuity and some daring.

Don't be afraid. You can do it. That is one of the points about romantic living. Don't think people are going to laugh at you. You can carry anything off, and the first time you do carry of the fur coat, or the jewels, or the vast hooped ball gown, you'll feel very, very pleased. The right dress can bring out the actress in you.