A place of my own
I’ve always been enamored about le boudoir. It is a place of magic, mystique and sheer, opulent elegance for me.
I remember my grandmother’s version of a boudoir; her dark, brown dressing table. The table was lower than your normal dressing table. It had a set of drawers on either side. The middle portion was where Muh laid out her make-up, brushes, combs, perfumes and potions.
I miss the scent of Coty Airspun Face Powder.
Attached to the back of the table was this huge, round mirror that was encircled by more wood. This where I spied on her as she applied her red Avon lipstick. Or was it Helena Ruebenstein?
Her special place, her boudoir, was where I saw her morph from a cafeteria worker into this round, majestic queen for church, or Southland Greyhound Park.
I envied my grandmother. As the product of black, native American - and whoever else was came through the back door - roots, she was blessed, for lack of a better word, with the soft, curly hair and café au lait skin that I secretly longed for.
Because of Muh’s beauty, and my self-perceived lack of it, I thought the boudoir was something beyond me. When thoughts of “Wouldn’t it be nice” popped into my head, I would beat them back. “A boudoir? Who do you think you are? How dare you think that much of yourself.”
A lot of us women have that problem: We don’t dare to think that much of ourselves.
So a few weeks ago I accepted the mission to think that much of my dark-skinned, gap-toothed, pop-eyed self and started planning my boudoir.
I commandeered the guest bedroom knowing that at this time of the year in Switzerland there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in - Switzerland wrong analogy Hades - that we’d have guests from the warmer climate back home. It had been serving as a junk room with clothes, luggage and what-nots tossed here and there. After rearranging and clearing out some things, I got to work.
My first task: find a make-up table. I’d spotted a rag-tag version of a table in a German magazine fashion editorial. It was a cheap table with a standard issue bedroom mirror placed on top and propped against the wall. One Saturday the hub and I set out to Ikea to find my “boudoir on the cheap” items. After winding through the mass of pressed wood and pregnant women, the hub spoke up:
“Do you really want to put your boudoir together with stuff from - (insert dramatic chord here) - eee kay uh?”
I thought about it for a second. Ikea-ing my place would be a quick and dirty achievement. That was the problem. Building and outfitting a boudoir takes time, patience, love. These things can’t be found in flat cardboard boxes.
He was right.
We left Ikea empty handed and headed home. That’s when I started my online search for a table. I hit up ricardo.ch and after a few days of searching, watching and waiting, my table showed itself. I placed my bid and won it for a grand total of CHF 15. It’s simple as you can see in the pic at the top, but elegant. It’s made out of some type of wood (I don’t know my woods) and the top is some sort of stone. The three-sided mirror was what sold me on it.
I left work early two days after winning it and drove with the hub to Kanton Aargau to pick it up. It felt like we were bringing a new addition to the family home. We set it up in the guest bedroom.
I stared at the table, wondering how could I bring out that bit of majesty, that mystique that I associated with Muh. I took a chair from downstairs, placed it in front of the table, sat down and looked. I took a deep, long look at myself using the three-way mirror: my nose, my lips, my eyes, my culture.
Then I realized something. My grandmother’s boudoir wasn’t just a place where she applied superficial layers of make-up. It was where she prepped herself, not just to go out in the world, but to face the world.
Eyeshadow - to open the windows of her soul to those who chose - and were brave enough - to look. Rouge (what we call “blush” now) - to accent that glow she refused to let the world dull. Lipstick - so perfectly placed, framing the words that could soothe your head or cut out your heart depending on what side she wanted to show.
I couldn’t see the value of these things in my youth.
This is how she fought the “nos,” the “you’re nots,” the “you can’ts” and the “you’ll never bes” surrounding her. This is where she applied her war paint.
My boudoir is still a work in progress. I’ll keep you up-to-date on it. I’ve begun outfitting it with my perfumes and trinkets. I have my eye on a chair that’s up for auction. But even if I win that chair, or if I fill that table with everything from Diorissimo to Dolce Vita (yes, I’m a Christian Dior fan) I’ll try to remember the true purpose of my boudoir.
It’s not just to re-enact the movements of my grandmother, but to understand what she saw in the mirror and to find that in myself.
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