Getting Dressed: Béatrice Viennet Brigid Waddams
Béatrice Viennet reigned over Sotheby’s and the family vines
At the end of this year, Britain says au revoir to our cousins across the Channel, as we leave the EU. This is a particularly sad time for those Brits who live in France.
One of them, Béatrice Viennet, tenth child in a family of 11, grew up on her father’s farm next to Chequers, the Prime Minister’s official country residence.
She knew Churchill when she was a little girl. A kindly uncle figure, he once gave her some chicks to rear. Later she fell in love with a French wine-grower, Luc Viennet, whom she met in London, and she now lives among the vineyards on his family estate near Montpellier.
Now 71, Viennet had been working for Sotheby’s for a decade before she married. She continued to do so, becoming their representative in the Occitanie region of France. She drove across the country to look at family treasures for sale, giving advice and calling in experts – ever on the lookout for the priceless discovery.
Viennet was 33 when she moved to France – almost exactly the same age as writer Nancy Mitford was when she left London for Paris after the Second World War. While Viennet was growing up in the 1950s, Mitford was writing hilariously from her new home about how appallingly the English dressed. She told of two English duchesses being turned away from Christian Dior because the people at the entrance considered them too dowdy to be admitted.
‘If you are a duchess in England,’ Mitford wrote, ‘you don’t need to be well dressed – it would be thought quite eccentric.’
Dress by Sessùn; suede pumps by Manfield, Montpellier
On our island, she continued, style was deemed to be showing off, something g the English most disliked. The only people ‘allowed’ to look good were ‘men and little children – our Queen and Princess Margaret set the fashion for the world until they were ten’. And even men ‘would not dream of wearing a new suit until it had spent one or two nights in the garden’. Viennet’s mother shared this notion: ‘She was very anti dressing up and showing off. It was considered “common” ” to draw attention to yourself in those days.’ As a child and a teenager, young Béatrice was dressed mostly in her sisters’ hand-me-downs. When she grew up, she met the designer Victor Edelstein and, being model-sized (which she has remained), was able to buy the sample garments from his collections at an affordable price. ‘The French still like to think the English dress badly, but of course they are far more fashion-conscious now and, anyway, fashion has become more international. These days, I think the difference is that the English are more eccentric in their taste and the French more classical. ‘Paris still leads the way here – the Paris Collections are a very big deal in France. There is a certain amount of “seduction” in French dressing. It is not at all show-off; more cultural and intellectual. But, at the same time, they want séduire, to seduce. No, that’s not the right word – “attract”. Take Madame Macron – her clothes are very well chosen and suit her: simple, not flashy, good colours.’ Viennet looks as elegant as her life and her job demand. She buys few clothes but they are always classically designed and well made. Some are French, some British. Paul Smith is a favourite. Arriving in France in the early
1980s, she had more problems learning to lay an upper-class table than with clothes – ‘Spoons and forks upside down! Maybe it’s to show off the coat of arms! And you never eat the dessert with a spoon.’
Viennet spent a year au-pairing with a family in Paris between leaving convent school and her first job (selling jumpers in the Scotch House in Knightsbridge). So speaking French has never been a problem.
Her French helped when her husband died suddenly in 2008. She found herself alone, untutored in the ways of wine, responsible for 124 hectares of vines (that’s up to 100,000 bottles), with the vendange only five days away. ‘The people with vineyards around me were wonderful – there is an amazing esprit de solidarité among the growers. Someone came to help me and saw me through the whole vendange.’
Viennet went on to run the Seigneurie de Peyrat vineyards very successfully until she handed over to her niece; she still helps out when needed.
For wine-loving oldies, December might be the last chance to order the Seigneurie de Peyrat wine duty-free!