What is it about animated Disney villainesses that make them so deliciously haute couture? Take my favorite villainess from the 1961 Disney production, 101 Dalmatians. For Cruella De Vil, white fox and sable coats were not enough---she had to have Dalmatian skin. And if that weren’t sick enough, she was after a litter of new born Dalmatian puppies in the care of a tee totaling, non smoking heroine who preferred the Amish look over Cruella’s couture elegance. The puppies were cute, but by the early sixties, I was a child fashionista and crazy for Madame De Vil. I regret the moral of the tale was lost on me. The idea of sweeping around in fur coats under which lay slinky ensembles in the only colors Cruella considered acceptable---black, white and red----now, this was my idea of fashion heaven.

But before Cruella was Maleficent, the arch demon-ness in the 1959 animated production of Sleeping Beauty. So Sleeping Beauty had fairy Godmothers who bestowed upon her dresses in pink and blue! Maleficent got to wear a purple and black gown with a double high collar and a chic black turban that I failed to realize was supposed to resemble horns.

I could go on and on---Bette Davis in All About Eve, the Austrian countess in The Sound of Music….why is it that the evil babes were so incredibly well dressed? And why did the heroines look like hillbillies who had never ventured into polite society? What was Hollywood telling us, anyway? Stay away from haute couture or you will turn into a devil woman from hell?

Many men and women are afraid of the power of a beautiful, elegantly dressed woman. The Catholic Church as well as Fundamentalist Christian churches regard true chic as “immoral” and it is an ax they regrettably grind on their television channels at every opportunity. Remember, it is just a mere three hundred years ago that New England women considered too attractive or too alluring were put to the stake and burned.

Hollywood has only partially learned its lesson. The movie goer in the nineties had to learn to love Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts looking rumpled and uncoiffed. In this century, Halle Berry and Charlize Theron received their Academy awards by minimizing to the extreme their exceptional beauty. Beauty and elegance are heavenly gifts not generously passed out. Twentieth century artists, usually white males, were so afraid of feminine beauty that they made a cult of disparaging it. Things are changing, perhaps. Perhaps it is just my wishful thinking. But I encourage our readers to embrace elegance wherever and whenever you can. Life is tough these days, so whether on the street or on the screen, enjoy the very occasional haute couture bad girl.