In Russia, there were times when both the Russian word and the Russian face, according to the classic, were not easy to meet, of course, in the world of light and half-light. Then our language was replenished with many French borrowings. In the twentieth century, in most cases they were abandoned, they can still be found in the works of Chekhov, Staritsky, Bunin and other classics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but they are used, rather, with an ironic connotation. Foreign words are again in fashion today, in particular those that our ancestors used before the revolution. Making a comment about the inappropriateness of some subject in this environment, designers use the expression "not comme il faut." And what, actually, does this phrase mean?
Not as it should
The French expression comme il faut translates to "as it should." In combination with the Russian denying “not,” it acquires the opposite meaning (not comme il faut). Of course, this is not about grammatical errors or violation of traffic rules, but about etiquette. Unfortunately, we often have problems with this - the lack of a system of grafting aesthetic concepts, which has been observed for many decades, affects. It’s a sin to hide, pushing to the technical side of education, our universities completely ignored such an important part of education as the ability to conduct oneself, to speak correctly, to eat, to dress and other things that were quite natural in the old days. No one is surprised by a man with an engineering diploma (sometimes not just one), champing around the table, wearing a tie not matching the shirt and costume, not knowing how to invite a lady to dance. It is especially depressing if officers are not trained in the norms of behavior, however, other specialists, too, are not always encouraging. They are not to blame, nobody just explained to them what comme il faut is.
Soviet etiquette
People of the older generation know, and young people know from films that until the end of the seventies in the Soviet Union they did not let the restaurant in without a tie. In the theaters, the situation was a little freer, but, gathering for the performance, each viewer thought about how to dress properly. Men took out jacket couples from the closet, women got their most beautiful dresses. If there were jewelry, then they wore them, and whoever did not have them, managed with elegant jewelry. We didn’t use a sophisticated old-regime concept, but our fellow citizens even understood that working overalls or old trousers with a sweater, which were inappropriate in the cultural center, were “not comme il faut”. By the way, both workers, peasants, intellectuals, and students considered it necessary to have at least one elegant suit in their wardrobe, or better, two, light (gray or beige) and dark (blue or black).
Most people knew what they needed while holding a fork in their left hand and a knife in their right hand according to the stories of experts on etiquette, but this, basically, ended the information about good manners. There were translated books (usually of Polish or Czech authors), which described in detail what to wear and how to behave in order to pass for a well-educated person. Circulations of these publications were sold out instantly. Professionally trained the etiquette of future diplomats.
New Russian aesthetics and its overcoming
In the period of accumulation of initial capital, which fell on the nineties, a new social class for our country of quickly become wealthy entrepreneurs arose for which the money earned or “made” by them became a measure of universal equivalent. The corresponding and very specific tastes of the “masters of life” significantly influenced public consciousness. The population, who perceived the new Russian aesthetics as “not comme il faut,” was forced to put up with the ideas imposed on him about the appropriateness of a particular manner of acting or dressing. Diamond earrings combined with a bikini swimsuit or fashionably frayed jeans have become the norm. Some of these manners have survived today, but we must pay tribute to the surviving representatives of the business world, they quickly overcame this childhood illness of "rightness." Apparently, there were teachers who explained to most new millionaires what “not comme il faut” means. Or maybe in the foreign voyages spied ...