Local etiquette expert to appear on Style Network TV Show ‘What I Hate About Me’

By Matt Liebowitz

Elaine Swann

Elaine Swann, a local etiquette expert, will soon be taking her teachings to a broader audience with an appearance on the new Style Network show “What I Hate About Me.”
A unique “lifestyle makeover” show, each episode of the new national TV series will feature a woman revealing the top 10 things she dislikes about herself; the woman will then confront and work towards solving these personal issues with the help of experts in the fields of fashion, beauty, cooking, and finance, as well as life coaches, psychologists and stylists.
Swann will appear on the show’s premiere episode, Jan. 2, putting her sought-after skills as an etiquette expert to work.
Though careful to not reveal too many details about the premier episode, Swann said viewers will see her counseling a woman whose relationship with family and friends has become fractured since her wedding because the woman did not send out thank you cards.
Swann also filmed several shorter segments that will air on the show, including one in which she details the difference between the right (social) and the left (personal) hands.
Swann brings to the Style Network years of etiquette experience.
The founder of Elaine Swann Enterprises, (www.elaineswann.com), Swann was first introduced to the etiquette world while attending charm school and finishing school growing up in North County. She also competed in beauty pageants, all of which she said had an etiquette component.
After high school, Swann moved to New York, where she continued to compete in pageants, including the Miss Black USA pageant. When she returned four years later to North County, Swann took the tips she had learned on the pageant circuit and applied them to helping girls prepare for a local debutante ball.
Her career snowballed from there, as Swann began running etiquette programs at local middle schools, high schools, and college campuses, including Palomar College and MiraCosta College. In 2002, she closed her hair salon, Bronzed Images, and began focusing her energy full-time on etiquette consulting and speaking engagements.
“That’s when it really turned into a business,” she said.
Swann has since spoken or offered etiquette programs at UCSD, SDSU, the San Diego Coastal Chamber of Commerce, Rancho Valencia Resort and The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe.
She has also written a book, “Girls Have Style…at School!: A Glam Girls Guide to Taking on the Day with Grace and Style,” based on her years of working with high school girls. She’s currently working on a second book, “Girls Have Style…When Out and About,” which will address proper etiquette in social situations, and will include sections on social networking and the Internet.
It’s the area of technology, Swann said, that has recently necessitated a whole new set of rules for appropriate conduct.
How adults use cell phones, text messaging, and email is the “biggest problem” as of late, she explained.
If engaged in a one-on-one conversation, Swann urges people to forego technology and to maintain the real person-to-person interaction.
“Let the phone ring,” she said. “If the call is important, let the person leave a message. You have caller ID, you have voicemail—let technology do the work.”
“We’re in such a fast society right now, and technology has connected and disconnected us at the same time,” she added. “We forget to be human. You can not let technology get in the way of a relationship,”
“What I Hate About Me” premiers Saturday, Jan. 2 at 9 p.m. EST. For more information on visit www.mystyle.com.
For more information on Elaine Swann, visit www.elaineswann.com, or call (760) 754-9891.