By Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor

Never mind the Joneses, sometimes it's hard enough keeping up with yourself.

As I struggled to get this issue-which marks our 17th anniversary-out to the printers and mailers before the Christmas holiday, I took a few minutes to go through my alarmingly expanding mile of mail at home.

Among the heaps of catalogs, requests for donations, more return address labels than I could use in two lifetimes, bills and Christmas cards, were a pile of magazines.

I left aside the already dated newsweeklies and went to work on some of the others.

Flipping through the December '05 issue of Harper's Bazaar (a gift), I stopped idling and got down to reading a 10-page spread titled "The New Classics."

The opening 2-page spread featured seven people and six dogs (about the right ratio, I'd say). All of the folks, who appeared to be a family of Pater, Mater, four brothers and a sister, were decked out for an afternoon of shooting. Only three of the boys and Pop (Oh, heck, let's call them the Joneses) had guns-two cased and two handsome looking shotguns, broken open and draped over arms.

According to the copy, we should, "go on the hunt for timeless texturesand traditional cuts."

Mrs and Miss Jones wore, according to the magazine, a total of $4996 worth of clothing, on the one page alone, with brand names ranging from Gucci to Purdey.

"Purdey?" I thought-"Why they make shotguns, really expensive shotguns!"

Apparently they make pretty pricey clothing, as well. I checked their website (purdey.com) and found both guns and clothing tastefully displayed. I was invited to call a telephone number (or perhaps "ring up") in London for the price of a snazzy looking shotgun, or, if I preferred, I could make an appointment and "visit Audley House" for a (gun) fitting.

In the following pages none of the Joneses are posing with the family firearms, but most of the clothes had the unmistakable air of garments just waiting to go afield.

I wonder if anyone will write a prissy letter to Bazaar, taking them to task for using guns as props?

But even more, I wonder if anyone, seeing a nice-looking cap from Purdey ($100), will go to the website and then decide that, in addition to the chapeau, they might also like a bespoke shotgun.

I own two shotguns, and I confess, dear readers, I've never gone out with them wearing a $1725 pair of boots. (The particular ones shown, by Hermes, are really, really nice looking, and I certainly wouldn't object to wearing them afield.)

What the Bazaar spread tells us is that looks matter (duh-it's a fashion magazine!), but also that some looks say certain things.

Show a non-gunowning friend a copy of Women & Guns, and sadly, she might wrinkle her nose. But show her a Bazaar spread of sumptuous clothing that just happens to contain shotguns and she might, once she got over the shock of a $445 belt, think a day afield might not be a bad thing.

Would Bazaar ever run a story that featured women in expensive casual clothing out at the local commercial handgun range?

How about one in which the latest rifles and a field full of prairie dogs formed the backdrop for the latest coats and jackets?

Probably not. It is worth noting that while fashion magazines (which, when they address the subject of guns editorially are always anti) may use them as props, those who use them in real life also have a sense of style and self.

One of the reasons we sponsor the annual Firearms & Fiction seminar (detailed elsewhere in this online issue) is because perception does matter and we as gunowners have a serious stake in how others view us and how they portray us.

While many of us (at least those about my age) would like to think of ourselves as latter-day Emma Peals, the sad truth is, we're just regular folks-Joneses if you will-who are not likely to go to work in form-fitting leather catsuits any more than we are to appear for luncheon with our Bazaar-approved "sporting" getup, and the matched pair in the trunk of the Land Rover.

But we are allowed to get a kick out of the notion, and to share it with others, even as we put on the perfectly serviceable (albeit dog hair-covered) decade old cardigan sweater, mall store jeans and last year's sale shoes.

Peggy Tartaro

Photo © Copyright 1998 Nancy Floyd, used with permission.