the beau monde

the beau monde

Collectively, society's most wealthy and fashionable people; the beautiful people. The phrase is French for "fine world." Those parties are exclusively for the beau monde. You wouldn't be invited even as a waiter.
See also: beau, monde
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • beautiful
  • beautiful people
  • beautiful people, the
  • a couple of (people or things)
  • couple
  • couple of
  • big and bold
  • come from far and wide
  • along the beaten track
  • beaten
References in classic literature
Yet there were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of Mews Street, which went at enormous rents on account of their being abject hangers-on to a fashionable situation; and whenever one of these fearful little coops was to be let (which seldom happened, for they were in great request), the house agent advertised it as a gentlemanly residence in the most aristocratic part of town, inhabited solely by the elite of the beau monde.
Little Dorrit
It has also found out that they will entertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the ELITE of the BEAU MONDE (the fashionable intelligence is weak in English, but a giant refreshed in French) at the ancient and hospitable family seat in Lincolnshire.
Bleak House
The Beau Monde: Fashionable Society in Georgian London.
From there Greig moves on to a discussion of the political influence of the beau monde. Chapter 3 details the importance of court to the beau monde and argues that "both court attendance and court dress became a vehicle for the political agenda of London's beau monde" (103).
The Beau Monde: Fashionable Society in Georgian London
"The name of Auguste de Radwan (1867-1957) has faded into obscurity but he was once a famous concert pianist, a notable authority on Chopin, feted by the beau monde of Europe," said Ms Peters.
Love letters of famous Polish pianist uncovered; Love letters written by polish pianist Auguste de Radwan to Marjorie Howell have been uncovered by the National Library of Wales. They reveal how the Welsh student captured his heart after asking for an autograph. Rachael Misstear reports
(Indeed the titles of La Belle Assemblee and its short-lived companion magazine aimed more at gentlemen, Le Beau Monde, refer to the "assembly," or group of people, or the beau monde whose fashions are documented in their pages.)
Gardiner, for example, is quite outside the beau monde's precincts.
Achieving an "air of decided fashion": how Austen's ladies adapted the latest from London
Today, it is something to look at," she told 300 guests, including many from the beau monde of Paris such as former first lady Bernadette Chirac, ex-minister Bernard Kouchner and U.S.
Bordeaux glitterati unveil stunning wine cellars
Just as Martin speaks of "conversations" rather than "imitation," so Hannah Greig portrays the beau monde of eighteenth-century London as including the nobility, the parallel bourgeois elite, and professionals working with them all.
(2.) "Musical Culture and the National Capital: The Epoch of the Beau monde in London, 1 700-1870," Concert Life in Eighteenth-century Britain, edited by Susan Wollenberg and Simon McVeigh (Aldershot (UK), 2004).
Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America 1700-1830
Diaghilev wept, pleaded: "Why bury yourself alive?" Within days Lifar was bundled off to Turin to study with Enrico Cecchetti, whisked to museums, introduced to the beau monde. His teeth and nose were fixed.
Looking back at the Ballets Russes: rediscovering Serge Lifar
The first half of Fashionable Acts, covering 1780 (and before) to the Reform Act of 1832, investigates the opera's role as a "theater of the great" where the beau monde watched the performances in the other boxes more intently than those onstage.
Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880