Don’t use the fig leaf stance by clasping your hands in front with straight arms to form a long V.

Don’t put up a roadblock by folding your arms across your chest.

Keep your feet about shoulder width apart and place the right foot slightly forward of the left foot.

When standing keep your back long and straight. Focus on the space above the nose and between the eyes. More than 60 percent of the time, you appear doubtful and intimidating. Less than 40 percent, and you appear uninterested, shy, and untrustworthy. Direct eye contact ranges from 40 to 60 percent of the time. Apologize if you’re seated where getting up is awkward.Įye contact communicated sincerity and self confidence. But always tells me it’s better to know it and not need it, than to need it and not know it.” As usual, grandmother knows best.Stand up when meeting and greeting new people. “The modern part means you don’t have to be that way all the time. “We thought there was something interesting in the dynamic between grandmother and granddaughter,” said Tyler. You’re always speeding, so you bump into someone on the subway and you don’t even say sorry or excuse me! You just go on with your life because it’s so rushed and hurried,” she said, adding, “We obviously need this book!” That’s Johnson’s thought anyway, who founded the Protocol School of Washington and has written a number of books on the subject, though it’s her first with her granddaughter (who she affectionately refers to as B.G. “I was raised in Mexico, and manners are very different here in New York. Roaming the space, waiters wore reindeer headbands to serve champagne and hot chocolate while a barbershop-style quartet sang Christmas carols (at one point, Tyler joined in for a verse).įor Kassem, the project got her thinking about how manners apply to her own life.

Earl Grey tea-flavored cotton candy, vanilla cake balls, and sugar cookies inscribed with party rules (“Do: Thank your host.” “Don’t: Raise your voice.”) offset confection-colored clothing-found both on the racks and on attendees like Hanneli Mustaparta, Leandra Medine, and Anya Ziourova. Inside ** Stella McCartney’**s SoHo store (where the book will be sold for a limited time), guests huddled around a table of playful creations from Flour Shop bakery’s Amirah Kassem. Can you bring a plus-one? Go back for seconds on desserts? Write a thank you note? At the book launch for Modern Manners: Tools to Take You to the Top-a guide penned by Liv Tyler and her grandmother Dorothea Johnson-the answer to all of these was yes. ’Tis the season of holiday parties, and the sheer number of celebratory events could have the average eggnog guzzler scratching his head over questions of proper etiquette.

Modern manners by dorothea johnson