The Regal Rules for Girls (36 page)

I know a pretty twenty-something girl from California (let’s call her Clara) who loves England more than life itself. And I admire her more than I can say. She works hard at her job in America and saves up so she can come to England every year to do the Season. And do the Season she does! She has dresses specially made for the Royal Enclosure (the clothes in Los Angeles are too slutty, she tells me), and she even designs and sews her own hats (she is determined, among other things, to become a part-time milliner). She goes to
all
of Henley (not just one day) and
all
of Royal Ascot and to every single polo match that matters. At night you can find her in Boujis and Mahiki, and on her free afternoons she heads to Gloucestershire (where Prince Charles has a country estate) to hang out with the bright young Brits known as the “Glossy Posse.” I’m telling you, if she doesn’t at least
kiss
Prince Harry one day—I’ll be very surprised.

Anyway, what I love about Clara is her pure tenacity. She knows the life she wants and she goes after it. To obtain entrance into the elite enclosures of English polo clubs, you must be a member, and to become a member you must be recommended by a member. Clara wasn’t daunted. From her desk in LA, she wrote a letter to each membership secretary of each polo club she wanted to attend. She politely explained how much she loved polo and kindly asked that they grant her a special summer membership without the
required recommendation. And you know what? Every single one of them agreed. Due to the strength of her all-American perseverance, Clara arrived in the UK with a handful of entry badges that most British polo fans would kill for.

The lesson? Nothing ventured; nothing gained.

The Chelsea Flower Show
Royal Hospital, Chelsea,
www.rhs.org.uk/chelsea

When:
five days in May

What is it:
This world-famous flower show is a traditional highlight of the British summer Season and is a particular favorite of the Royal Family. Founded in the mid-nineteenth century by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), the Chelsea Flower Show takes over the grounds of the Royal Hospital with a huge array of creative floral displays.

What to expect:
Rubbing shoulders with royalty as you wander through exquisite exhibits of floristry.

Who goes:
The Queen, Charles, and Camilla are almost always in attendance for the Royal Preview, which takes place on the Monday. (In 2002, Prince Charles was an actual exhibitor; his display was called the “Healing Garden” and featured a tribute to his late grandmother.) Prince Albert of Monaco has also been known to make an appearance—maybe one day he’ll bring his hot nephews Andrea and Pierre.

What to wear:
There is no stringent dress code, but ladies should wear a summery dress or skirt with a smart jacket or cardigan. Hats are not required, but you may want to plan for wet weather.

Top tip:
Become a member of the Royal Horticultural Society. RHS members enjoy special rates and privileged entry. Advance booking is essential.

Faux pas:
Holding a 9-to-5 job. (This event is designed purely for ladies who lunch and is not open on Saturday or Sunday.)

Glorious Goodwood
Goodwood Park, West Sussex,
www.goodwood.co.uk

What is it:
King Edward VII famously described this prestigious horse racing event as a fabulous “garden party with racing tacked on.” Not much has changed since.

Where:
Goodwood was the ancestral home of the Duke of Richmond for more than three hundred years and boasts a superb collection of paintings, porcelain, and furniture.

What to expect:
“Panamas, Pimm’s, and parasols” along the rolling lawns of this spectacular stately home.

What to wear:
For the Richmond Enclosure, men should don linen suits, waistcoats, and the archetypal Panama hat popularized by King Edward VII. Ladies should aim for understated glamour and chic elegance (think floaty dresses) and are encouraged to wear hats at the Festival Meeting.

Also try:
The Goodwood Festival of Speed—the largest motor sports party in the world, popularly dubbed “the garden party of the Gods,” and the Goodwood Revival—think fabulous vintage cars and fabulous vintage clothes.

Glyndebourne
East Sussex,
www.glyndebourne.com

What is it:
This world-class opera festival presents yet another opportunity to enjoy a champagne picnic on a stately summer lawn. (When I said the season is one long alcoholic picnic, I wasn’t kidding.) Dating back more than seventy years, Glyndebourne (which
rhymes with “kind-born”) attracts opera fans from all over the world to indulge in outdoor renditions of Mozart and Handel. Catered picnics, along with garden furniture and your own private butler, can easily be arranged.

Dress code:
Black-tie (yes, you read that correctly—a black-tie picnic!). This means wear a short or long evening dress. The tradition of wearing evening dress during the Glyndebourne Festival originated with founder John Christie, who felt it helped the audience show respect for the performers. Given the perils of the British weather, it is also advisable to bring an additional, warm layer: cardigan, pashmina, raincoat, etc.

The Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy
Piccadilly, London,
www.royalacademy.org.uk

What to expect:
Beautiful people swanning around and chatting about art. (Perfect for putting that new History of Art degree of yours to good use.)

R
ECOMMENDED
R
EADING:

Last Curtsey
by Fiona MacCarthy

This is a glorious firsthand account of the 1958 English Season. The author was lucky enough to be in the last group of debutantes to actually go to Buckingham Palace and curtsey to the Queen. Fiona describes how she and her fellow teenage “debs” took part in some of the last rituals of aristocratic power and indulged in a British social season that had remained unchanged since the eighteenth century. The author tells of riotous party seasons that stretched on for months, flitting in and out of the grand houses of London, dancing and flirting with young noblemen everywhere
from the Home Counties to the Scottish Highlands. I wanted to
live
in this book’s pages. So will you.

Snobs
by Julian Fellowes

This novel is the tale of Edith Lavery. Edith is a middle-class English girl who goes to Royal Ascot and bags one of the most eligible bachelors in the country—Charles Broughton, heir to the Marquess of Uckfield. Edith soon becomes a countess, yet life among the upper echelons of society is not all that it seems. She quickly discovers there is much more to the aristocracy than dancing at Annabel’s and understanding which fork to use at dinner. And then there is Charles’s mother, the frightening Lady Uckfield, who is none too pleased with her son’s choice of wife. From the screenwriter that brought us
Gosford Park
and our beloved
Downton Abbey
,
Snobs
is the best, and funniest, contemporary British novel I’ve read in years.

E
very time I go back to America, I’m always struck by how different the single men are from their British counterparts. Yes, American men are louder and a bit more confident (bordering on cocky), but what really strikes me is they are not afraid to show their interest in you—any time, any place.

One afternoon, when I was visiting my cousin in New York, I was standing on the train platform at Penn Station, when a guy approached me and gave me his business card; one hour later while I was having lunch with my cousin in Union Square, another guy passed me his phone number on a cocktail napkin. It’s all so cliché, but deep down I love that American men have the guts to
do these things! (And even better, that they do these things when they are sober!)

British women would probably find this forward American behavior a little freaky, but I have a hunch that they might also find it slightly refreshing, because British men won’t give you their business cards unless it’s two in the morning and they’ve consumed at least ten pints’ worth of Dutch courage. Despite their inebriated state, they’ll manage to slur something surprisingly charming and eloquent (they are English after all), then they’ll rugby tackle you into a dark corner, stick their tongue down your throat, and take you home. When you wake up in the morning, you are boyfriend and girlfriend. I can’t tell you how many English couples have met this way.

After I graduated from college, my closest friends were scattered across the globe: LA, Chicago, DC, New York, London—the list of cities made it sound as if we were opening a chain of fashion boutiques. But in the UK, after graduation everyone moves to London. So most single English girls in their twenties are still hanging out with the same group of friends they had in college. Considering that in college they only became friends with “suitable” types anyway (boys and girls that went to appropriate boarding schools) and their families had been going to parties in each other’s country houses for generations—getting drunkenly kissed in a pub by one of them several years later is hardly a big deal.

The two of them might be boyfriend and girlfriend for a year or two, and then she might move on and become the girlfriend of another guy from her same selective peer group—and basically, whichever guy from this social circle rugby tackles her around the age of twenty-nine is the one she marries.

Shakespeare and other medieval English poets may have invented courtly love, but I can safely say without reservation that the modern English male knows little or nothing about courtship.

By the time I reached the age of eighteen, I had never actually encountered a living, breathing Englishman. I had never heard a living, breathing English accent that wasn’t in a Hugh Grant movie, a BBC costume drama, or an old rerun of
Fawlty Towers
. So when I heard one for the first time (in the beer-stained basement of a noisy fraternity house), the effect was positively hypnotic.