Farewell to the Friendly Cheek Kiss

The moratorium on “la bise,” as it’s known in France, brings sorrow, but also relief.

I never meant to kiss Miuccia Prada. Not on the lips, anyway. It was a muggy afternoon in the spring of 2015, and I was in Tokyo at the opening of her new Miu Miu store. I had been waiting in line to congratulate her. The lights above me hung bright and hot, and I knew without looking that I had sweated through the tailored suit I’d been given to wear for the occasion. A famous French actress stood two people ahead of me at the front of the line. Her arms Pietà’d out as she approached the Italian designer, hands landing confidently on Mrs. Prada’s shoulders, and, as if tracing the line of a toppled-over parabola, she kissed her — mwah — on the left cheek, and then again — mwah — on the right. The next person followed suit, making it through the exchange without incident. Then it was my turn. I kind of cranked forward and cupped Mrs. Prada’s waist the way a high school junior might initiate a slow dance. Then I lurched even closer, barely grazing one side of her cheek on the first try. On the second, determined this time to make contact, I touched the hinge of her lips to mine.

I have tried my best to avoid la bise — a gentle, platonic kiss said to have been introduced to the French by Roman soldiers during the Gallic Wars— ever since. But as the editor of a style magazine whose job includes going to the fashion shows in Paris and Milan twice a year, that’s not always easy. And when I fail — as I often do — it’s rarely pretty. One time, I got a publicist’s earring lodged between the arm of my glasses and a sprout of unkempt sideburn. Another time, I went in for the initial right-to-right cheek smack (as is customary in Paris) only to realize that the person I’d been introduced to was from Italy (where they usually begin on the opposite side). In another instance, after I’d absolutely nailed the double kiss, my Belgian acquaintance ruined everything by going back in for a triple-dip. The agreed-upon number of kisses varies not onlyacross countries but across regions within countries. The comedian Julio Torres told me, jokingly, that in his native El Salvador, la bise serves the additional purpose of proving that you’re not a bot: “We do one kiss, but adding another isn’t a big deal. Like, ‘OK, I’ll do your captcha.’”THE T LIST |Sign up herefor T’s newsletter, a weekly roundup of what our editors are noticing and coveting now.

But when you’ve been raised, as large swaths of the United States have, on hugs and handshakes, the perfect symmetry of two swooping kisses can make a simple greeting feel like a gauntlet. The actress Christina Ricci considers la bise “a trap for clumsy Americans,” as does the actress Tavi Gevinson. “Whenever I run into someone and the double kiss is within the realm of possibility,” she said, “time slows down, and I age a thousand years. I remember being introduced to a woman who said, between multiple cheek kisses, ‘I’m such a fan of yours … Although I have to say, I did not love … your production of “The Cherry Orchard.”’ It was shocking.” (To avoid the unique embarrassment of being criticized while caressed, perhaps she should have taken her cue from the British essayist Raven Smith: “I go right for the lips, but that’s because I’m a floozy.”)

There is, however, a difference between choosing not to do something and being told that it’s no longer yours to do. In early April, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, said about the spread of Covid-19, “I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again.” At a news conference in March, the French health minister, Olivier Véran, put a similar ban on la bise. If the handshake is the Ford Durango or Levi’s 501 of introductions, then la bise is as French as a baguette. And yet, while it isn’t too difficult to imagine an America without handshaking — we’ve been waving and grunting at one another for years — a European hello without a kiss is like a Christophe Honoré movie without Louis Garrel. Whither the heart and soul from six feet away? “It’s just terribly personal, isn’t it?” the French Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan told me. “I’d never give a single one to a perfect stranger, let alone two. But then there’s the opposite of that, where you meet Americans and they’ll only give you one, so you’re left alone with your second kiss, halfway through, your mouth hung agape like you’re a pervert who’s hungry for more, so they backtrack and offer their cheek as though they’re saying, ‘All right then, if you need it.’”

Not everyone does. The designer Jason Wu is already weighing the “new normal” of air-kissing from behind masks while Batsheva Hay, another New York-based designer, noted, “It was a thing growing up to double kiss when greeting my girlfriends. We were preteens in Queens in raver jeans trying out a fancy French affectation. Now, even when I’m in Paris, I prefer a hug or a high-five.” But, though I am loath to admit it, a high-five in Paris just doesn’t feel right. I might not like la bise — I don’t like inattentive waiters, either — but it’s integral to the city and its culture, and its politics are in the right place. We’ve been using the word “equalizer” quite a bit recently to describe the pandemic. Another great equalizer is la bise, which, along with potential confusion, does confer a bit of warmth and good will. “The double kiss was such a great thing,” the Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli said with a sigh. “It was the opening of a dialogue.” In the same way that a New Yorker will chew you out whether you’ve got five cents or five million dollars in your bank account, the French kiss cuts through social hierarchy. Its decorum is somehow both elitist and democratic.

Jeremy Scott, who has been called “the people’s designer,” knows a bit about both. The American-born Moschino creative director, who has shown recent collections at the New York Transit Museum and on the lot at Universal Studios Hollywood, announced at the beginning of the year his plans to move the presentation of his namesake line to couture week in Paris. “The double kiss is so ingrained in me — I don’t know how I can quit it. I sound like I’m in ‘Brokeback Mountain’: ‘I just can’t quit you!’” said Scott. “I suppose there is the puckered kissy-face version, but that feels insincere to me. I like human touch.” Paul Andrew, the British creative director of the Italian house of Salvatore Ferragamo, feels much the same: “La bise is a beautiful part of European society because it’s a casual and unafraid expression of physical intimacy,” he said. “Where I grew up in southern England, kissing acquaintances — especially men kissing men — was unthinkable, which is one of the reasons I cherish it so much. Now, of course, la bise is off the table for the foreseeable future. What can replace it? I suppose there’s the bow, the namaste, the chest bump, or the elbow tap — although, from here, in lockdown in Florence, even that seems a little too close for comfort.”

A bow could be nice, but the deference runs upstream of intimacy. The namaste seems stressful. The chest bump and elbow tap should be reserved for pickup games and dive bars. For better or worse, nothing compares to the thrill of landing a double kiss, or the dread of botching it. “Personally,” said Andrew, “I can’t wait for la bise to re-enter our everyday lexicon of social behaviors. Because once we’re kissing again, it will mean we are no longer living in fear.”

Source: www.nytimes.com

By:  Nick Haramis

Photo: Jessica Craig-Martin’s “Cancer Benefit, Southampton (Air Kiss)” (2008).Credit…Jessica Craig-Martin/Trunk Archive

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