'Sophistication that looks like simplicity is my own idea of style' — Jan Morris

Above, the first sentence of her short piece in today's Wall Street Journal.

More: "Style shows at its best in adversity."

The essay follows.

Toujours Provence

Sophistication that looks like simplicity is my own idea of style, and one of its epitomes, to my mind, is a delightful small rural hotel in central Provence. It is remote, and not conventionally luxurious. Beringed tycoons might not think much of it, but as its proprietress once reminded me, dukes frequent it.

Style shows at its best in adversity, and I had occasion only the other day to see this little hostelry at its most imperturbable. A great storm had swept Provence, and when we came to check out the electric power was off and none of the credit-card mechanisms were working. We had no hard cash. We had no travelers' checks. We had a train to catch. What to do?

The whole hotel staff, it seemed to me, assembled to deal with this crisis. There was the magnificent Senegalese lady receptionist. There were two or three Arab-looking maids. There was the curly haired hotel terrier, and two refugee kittens loudly squalling in a nearby basket. On his knees on the floor was a young electrician, contemplating his fuses in a scholarly way, and sometimes a gently smiling middle-aged Frenchman drifted through with a watering can. Now and then there sounded from somewhere out of sight the calmly authoritative voice of Madame La Patronne.

We had four different credit cards between us, and we tried them all. None of them worked. We tried them back-to-front, inside-out, we rubbed them on our skirts. The electrician on the floor took no notice at all as we swapped one card for another, but once Madame's contralto offered comforting but totally ineffectual off-stage advice.

Back came the man with the watering can, the Arab girls crowded around the reception desk, the electrician hummed to himself, a woman in a bikini turned up to clean the windows, and suddenly there was a bleeping noise from a credit-card machine. The receptionist seized one of our cards and jammed it in, and — miracle! — the machine responded. Limp with relief we watched as it began to churn out its paper. It was like the resolution of a fugue.

But no, it was better than that. It was the development of a farce, because whatever any of us did then, whatever buttons we pressed, inexorably that paper kept on coming out. It spilled all over the table, it curled all over the floor, and by the time I managed to grab it in passing and sign my name we were all helpless with laughter, and the splendid Senegalese had collapsed hilariously shaking into an armchair.

Presently Madame emerged into the chaos from her Olympus. "It has been a great pleasure to have you here," she said, above the whirring of the machine, the barking of the terrier, the meowing of the kittens, the shrieks of the receptionist and the giggling of the Arab girls. "I hope we shall see you again."

"Au revoir, mesdames," said the electrician, looking up at last from his fuse box — and there's style for you.

....................

Who's the designer?

Hint: one of my three favorites.