Move over Beverly Hills, it’s time to meet the nişantaşette!
If you thought that Jane Austen’s idyllic Regency-era wonderland of courting aristocrats, ballroom dancing and how-do-you-do’s was over, you’re mistaken. It still lives on in the poshest of Istanbul’s suburbs, Nişantaşı. Well, sort of. Although the countryside walks have been replaced with visits to the country club, horse-drawn carriages traded for SUVs, ballroom dancing for pilates, and tea parties for solariums, that ridiculous world where women stay at home till they marry, make themselves pretty, and have no cares other than to find the perfect husband for themselves (or their daughters) is more valid than ever in 21st century Istanbul.
The nişantaşette’s life basically involves being places. It means being at her private university’s American Literature course lecture at 9am; the university café from 11am to 1pm, where she debates with her girlfriends whether Ataberk loves her or not; her Yoga class at 3pm for the best spiritual peace and perfection money can buy; her friendly neighborhood solarium at 4:30pm to maintain that caramelized faux-Latina radioactive orangey skin; a brasserie/cafe at 6pm, and a discussion with her other girlfriends (the ones from her summer holiday cooperative village) about whether Ataberk is her soulmate or not; dinner at 7pm served by her maid; watching whatever’s on CNBC for an hour (Angel or Buffy); a 3-hour telephone monologue with her best friend about why Ataberk was sort of cold to her in the university cafeteria when he was with his friends (and that slut who was totally hitting on him and dresses like a whore); then finally cuddling with her over-sized stuffed panda as she goes beddy-byes by 11pm accompanied to her favorite nostalgic “Look how pretty I look dancing!” song from last summer in Bodrum.
But don’t let the veneer fool you, because our nişantaşette has problems too, just like real people. Between the beauty salons, the tennis lessons, the laser electrolysis treatment, and finding parking space for daddy’s 4-cylinder high-school graduation present, our nişantaşette is aching with real-world dilemmas. For example, should she get a new nose or not? Do people like her nose the way it is, or should it be a little smaller, a little more pucked up? And what about that cellulite on her ass? Liposuction or rhinoplasty? Lipo or rhino, lipo or rhino… which one does she want for her birthday? Maybe she should just get a dog? She would look so cute with a little Russian terrier, and she could wear that hot little training outfit, oversized sunglasses and a baseball cap to go with the dog, with a leash and cell phone in one hand and a Venti Soy Cafe Latte in the other. Which brings her to another question: what to wear? She’s so bored with her clothes and she needs something for tonight, not to mention summer being just around the corner. Maybe she should get the lipo, now that she’s thinking of bikinis. Why is life so difficult? Why couldn’t she have been born a princess without a care in the world?
The nişantaşette also needs to worry about keeping up appearances. There are certain requisites for membership in the nişantaşette “club”: namely, an annoying nasal voice that sounds like a duck whistle every time she calls a waiter; some sort of eating disorder, preferably anorexia, but bulimia if she's really cool; pointy shoes, tight blue bell-bottom jeans and a pair of designer sunglasses perched atop her head at all times – all from DKNY or Mango; a boyfriend with a car and an attitude; dyed blonde hair; and most importantly, an aloof aura of smug pretension, with friends to match. Oh, and rich parents to pay for gasoline, education and hair dressing. A big no-no for the nişantaşette is smiling or laughing openly and sincerely in public. She must always maintain her stratified social superiority by not deigning to stoop to loose antics, or “fun” as it’s also known. In fact it’s preferable to look bored a lot of the time, and to complain a lot, thereby letting others know that she is worthy of a better scene than the one she is in and that she actually has better places to be, and is thus better than you. In fact, the only time a nişantaşette considers it okay to break that phlegmatic look of dull indifference and actually laugh in public is if it’s at the expense of others while gossiping with her friends (i.e. dissing any pretty girl who is not part of her group).
But the nişantaşette must also cultivate both her spiritual and physical side when the world gets a little hectic. She keeps track of the latest dieting and fitness trends through her monthly staple of Cosmopolitan, the Atkins diet, her horoscope, and all the in-depth scientific research that has magically revealed that fruits, vegetables, water and exercise are good for her. She knows where her chakras are, and she knows that June will be a particularly tricky month when Saturn is aligned with Mars and Libras everywhere will have to deal with a lot of negative energy around them (which, by the way, always emanates from others, not her).
While cultivating a spiritual balance, the nişantaşette must also attract much-needed attention, which acts like fuel to her existential fire. Lots of accessories are a good start, colorful and distracting. Tattoos in the right places are also essential for that “Look at my sexy bits!” effect. The ankle, arms, breast, shoulder blade, hip, belly or just above the ass are all strategically ideal locations to draw peoples’ attention. And that little tattoo on her shoulder blade actually means “harmony” in Sanskrit or Chinese or something, in case you're wondering.
But huddle in close, because our little nişantaşette has a terrible secret: she and her parents used to live in Beşiktaş (before daddy’s import-export business landed a big contract – something to do with trading “miscellaneous” goods in Ukraine), and, god forgive her, most of her friends still do live in Beşiktaş. Hopefully nobody will ever find out.
