THE BILINGUAL LANGUAGE OF ELEGANCE

 People no longer seem to care as much about how they dress, but there was a time when being elegant, dapper, smart, well-groomed, and stylish was the ideal everyone aspired to. Men and women dressed to kill, to the nines, and took pride in being well-dressed at all times. The Spanish language, too, bears witness to this former obsession with dress, with expressions such as ir hecho un pincel (hecho un brazo de mar) ir de tiros largos or maqueado. If this increasingly casual approach to dress persists, such expressions may survive only in dictionaries.

Juan vino a la fiesta hecho un pincel John came to the party dressed to the nines

— “… se ponía hecho un pincel aunque solo fuera a ir al mercado.” Antonio Muñoz Molina, Sefarad, 2001. Esp. || “… lo mandé planchar, hice almidonar la camisa y…hecho un brazo de mar, bajé al comedor.” Manuel Leguineche, El camino más corto, 1995. Esp.