»Elegance can become an ideal, all the more so because there are no simple rules on how to achieve it. It always remains shrouded in a trace of mystery.«
Is elegance an outdated word that is visibly disappearing from our vocabulary and is only superficially associated with fashion? Ilma Rakusa agrees with neither the one nor the other. Instead, she highlights the many levels of elegance and its meaning in the here and now. The social and political functions of the term, she says, should not be underestimated, nor should the admirable elegance in the arts and architecture – and of course we find elegance in people’s appearance, whether in clothing or posture, gestures or looks. Ilma Rakusa shows the inner and outer elegance in her subtle way.
»This volume is the right book for the time, our time of hardship, in which the conflict between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated takes on absurd forms, in which retreating into one‘s own four walls tempts one to let oneself go … A plea that one gladly follows.« (Deutschlandfunk)