Over the Christmas holidays I bought a new 2010 Lincoln MKS. This is by far the nicest car I have ever owned. I really like the car and I like what Ford is doing with Lincoln. In 2006, Mark Fields, Executive V.P. and President of the Americas for Ford Motor Company identified Lincoln customers as “self-made people, with enough confidence to be elegant and understated.” [emphasis added]
When I think of understated elegance Mad Men fits the bill. But I also think of old movies with Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Carey Grant and Frank Sinatra. More recently movies like Oceans 11 and the remake of the “Thomas Crown Affair” strike an elegant but understated chord. But each of these movies and the people who give them their elegant but understated quality are not flashy people – Grace Kelly won people over with her style, not with revealing poses. And Carey Grant, while fit, wasn’t a perfect six pack gut kind of guy either. Likewise, Julia Roberts and George Clooney haven’t sought to appeal to America with risqué or flashy scenes, although they are frequently listed among the sexiest people in the world. Instead of flash these people have used polished style.
Likewise a car does not make the person -- my level of understated elegance did not change simply because I switched from a Nissan Altima (a fine car) to a more luxurious Lincoln. I agree with Mark Fields of Ford Motor Company, understated elegance is produced by confidence. That doesn’t mean that insecurities aren’t lurking, but it does mean that we face daily challenges with confidence – sometimes we succeed and sometime we fail. It is a person's enduring confidence that produces a series of intangible character traits which manifest themselves ultimately in understated elegance.
Grace Kelly with a hometown hero, Louis Armstrong, in the film High Society.
Understad Elegance at its best.
