Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, has been historically depicted as dressing down as a shepherdess. It is with her in mind that we introduce more modern examples of (if not royal) upper class society types who profess to be “just folks.”
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Thankfully, the government eventually got around to banishing tobacco advertising. But before it did, tobacco companies tried appealing to the masses by co-opting baseball players, movie stars, and society page women to promote their products. “Men, you can be like Joltin’ Joe or Bob Hope. Women, you can be as renowned as a Boston matron or as glamorous as a Main Line deb.”
But strangely enough, some of the society types in the advertisements claimed to be following in Marie Antoinette’s footsteps:
From 1938—“Miss Beatrice Gray, popularly known as Milo, is a typical member of the modern-minded younger generation. Although her family and connections are v-e-r-y prominent socially in New York and Boston, Milo is simple and un-affected-charmingly democratic in outlook. When she made her debut last fall, she was well-known to Newport and New York society. Milo finds time to indulge her fondness for sports. She swims, plays tennis and golf, and loves to hunt.
‘But my favorite sport,’ Milo says, ‘is figure skating!’ She has made four trips abroad, paying visits to world-famous skating centers-Innsbruck, Gstaad, and Krynica.”
From 1939—“Young Mrs. Curtenius Gillette Jr. is known as ‘Tania’ among her friends in New York and Nassau society. She speaks five languages . . . excels in housekeeping . . .”
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I bring up the past to show that the “simple and un-affected-charmingly democratic” outlook is still with us.
Here is Bettina Anderson, Donald Trump, Jr.’s latest fiancee: “I’m just your typical stay at home mom…only I don’t do household chores…or have a husband…or have kids.” (1)
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But maybe you’re more interested in divorce. In a piece for “The Cut,” that qualifies for the anti-climax award of the month,
Monica Corcoran Harel laid out quiet divorce as a potentially positive move.
Really? Sure! She spoke to one woman who absolutely loved “going zombie” in her marriage. “I lowered my overall expectations, which lowered my disappointment in my husband — and in myself,” the woman said, adding that checking out of her relationship “freed me up to learn how to make jewellery too.” (2)
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Martha Stewart didn’t quite go full Marie Antoinette when she and her husband moved to Connecticut.
Stewart regarded her social scene as less fussy than that of the “fancy Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue matrons,” she told me over the phone. “I was a little bit more casual. I liked antiques and I loved beautiful things, but I was not a fanatic about butlers.” (3)
I don’t know if Marie Antoinette had her poultry under control but Martha claimed she herself did.
One of the events that first got her noticed as a caterer was a reception for an American-folk-art exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory, to which she brought her own live chickens, their cages perched on mounds of hay. When I asked if the room had smelled like a coop, Stewart seemed to recoil. “Oh, no! No, no,” she assured me. “My chickens—they don’t poop in public.”
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(1) https://slate.com/life/2025/12/donald-trump-jr-girlfriend-kimberly-guilfoyle-engaged.html
(2) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/nov/26/quiet-divorce-why-people-are-checking-out-of-their-marriage-emotionally-without-telling-their-partner
