Mr. J and I have a set of chairs in the basement that I want dragged outside for Junk Day. Mr. J insists that they are very comfortable, and I say I don't care, they are hideous. Mr. J says they aren't all that bad, and I say, oh, they are. They look like exactly what they are - hand-me-downs from a 75-year-old woman with awful taste.
This launched an entire conversation about his Mr-Grandma. (Not his Nanny, whom I adore and who is a fine role model for all of us as we get to our 80s someday. Nanny is Mr-Mama's mother. She was drop dead gorgeous when she was an ADPi at UK, corresponding with seven different GI's during WWII. Nowadays Nanny always dresses up in her Wildcat-blue blouse to watch the game on TV. She is a pistol, and we like to sit together at Mr-family gatherings and comment on the spectacle presented by these people who are not related by blood to either of us. I digress.)
As my own dear J-Mama says, Mr-Grandma is a prime example that money can't buy you taste. Her condo is done in a tres eighties color scheme - black and grey and red, with animal prints thrown in for good measure. There is artwork made of strips of mirror. She wears enormous jewelry - no doubt real and very expensive - at all times.
So when I told Mr. J that Mr-Grandma's cast-off chairs are tacky, he said that they couldn't be tacky, because she spent a lot of money on them. I said things can be expensive and still tacky, using as Exhibits A-Z everything else that Mr-Grandma wears or uses as decor. Mr. J said that he would call her things gaudy but not tacky. In his mind, expensive things can't be tacky.
Dibbs and I were talking about this on the phone, and we think it's worthy of general discussion. What is the distinction between gaudy and tacky? Dibbs and I sort of decided that gaudy means loud colors or sparkles, and what's gaudy is always also tacky ... but there are tacky things that aren't gaudy. And expense is a wholly irrelevant factor. But I am interested in hearing thoughts from the rest of you DRGs.
This post is further proof that boys are just different creatures. Many of them are wholly unable to see subtle distinctions that seem so apparent to the rest of us. Mr. Twinkle is only now learning about what is and is not tacky, and it's only through years of me telling him what is and what isn't. This is not just because Mr. Twinkle is a boy, but also because he grew up in a home with mauve upholstery, mirrored walls, and shelves filled with tiny figurines of rabbis and kercheif-clad peasant women knitting. (But all these are different subjects for another day).
ReplyDeleteI think one definition of tacky would be anything that is or was trendy or stylish at one time, but fell out favor and didn't stand the test of time as classics do. I'm thinking macrame, which must have seemed new or fresh at one time (I have to believe that as it is the only plausible explanation for macrame). The eighties decor at Mr. Grandma's was probably the very latest and coolest when she decorated it, but she would have been better off heading down to Joe Ley's and investing in pieces that generations of people have considered beautiful.
That is one of the biggest lessons I have tried to teach Mr. Twinkle lo these many years: invest in a classic and you'll never regret it. They can always be reinvented as the trends change.
Can't wait to read more of the discussion...perhaps this calls for an emergency Classic Cocktail hour. Oh, and that Nanny sounds just darling.