What can I do to be glamorous?

Pay heed to the "Nanny Stern" of the fashion world!

1940s Fashion - a Vintage Guide to Glamour

There are loads more such gems over at Glamourdaze...

Of gardens, spreads and the Queens of England and of Bollywood

The faboo Langthorns Plantery, Bishop's Stortford, Essex [by Royal Appointment to HM The King]

So, I'm back from my jolly jaunt to Essex, doing a Grand Tour of the myriad wonderful garden centres in that county, thanks to Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex. The extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers are going to be even fuller as a result - YAY! [And I have spent most of today out there, dodging the downpours, sorting stuff out and potting things up in preparation.]

But what did I miss while I was away?

• The highly anticipated exhibition Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style at the King's Gallery opened. A centenary celebration for the very much-missed HM The Queen, it has on display for the first time "items of her clothing worn in all ten decades of her life - from birth to adulthood, from princess to queen, and from off-duty style to dressing for the global stage for momentous occasions in Britain’s history". Needless to say, we have our tickets booked for July, when we'll be going along to view it with The Mother...
• Hot on the heels of the "Great Marmalade Outrage" [our own, our very own British marmalade will henceforth have to be described as "citrus marmalade" because of the bloody EU; apparently "Johnny Foreigner" wants the right to call their fig/apricot/other fruit concoction "marmalade" as well, rather than the pseudo-jam that it is] - now it seems that another great British spread for toast, Gentleman's Relish (Patum Peperium) has been discontinued. Scandalous!

• ...and, sadly, I missed paying a fond farewell to another Patron Saint - Miss Asha Bhosle, Bollywood's "Queen of Playback" [singing the vocals for actresses who appeared on screen] for over eight decades, who has ascended the flower-strewn, incence-scented stairway to her Vaikuntha in Fabulon, aged 92. The Guinness Book of Records states that she was the most prolific recording artist in the world, having reportedly recorded up to 12,000 solo, duet and chorus backed songs in over 20 Indian languages since 1947!

  So let us pay the great lady due tribute:

Here she is, dubbing for the magnificently camp "Helen" (Helen Jairag Richardson) - a megastar in Indian musical cinema in the 1960s:

Helen - Naach e Dil

...and here, dubbing for Reena Roy:

Kitnay Bhi Tu Kar Le Sitam [from Sanam Teri Kasam]

And finally - recognising the fact that even though I am on leave (almost) all this week, it is Tacky Music Monday - here's the lady herself, aged 79, with a tongue-in-cheek take on an old Usha Uthup number [from the only Bollywood film in which Rex Harrison and Vera Miles ever appeared, Shalimar]...

Asha Bhosle - Cha Cha Cha Song (Dance Masti Mix 2012)

Sublime.

RIP, Asha Bhosle (born Ashalata Dinanath Mangeshkar, 8th September 1933 – 12th April 2026)

Have a good week, dear reader.

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FOOTNOTE:

Of course, I could not let any such tribute pass without playing this famous paean to her!

Cornershop - Brimful of Asha

Of hats, gnomes, Selena Gomez, Surrealist couture, lesbian choreography and an asteroid

It's Ladies' Day at Cheltenham Festival!

Another snippets post, dear reader:

• The Gnome Guard news: A couple in Dorking have won the right to keep a flower bed as their land after a neighbour tried to claim it as their own, by digging up all their plants and replacing them with a garden gnome!
• Selena Gomez helps catch possums news: Invasive possums from Australia have become a major pest in neighbouring New Zealand - but the best bait for their traps turns out to be a cinnamon-flavoured Oreo biscuit, as promoted by hamster-faced superstar Selena Gomez! The lady herself has so far declined to comment...

• The "shoe hat" comes to town news: The next major exhibition to set us salivating with anticipation is Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, which is coming to the V&A from 28th March 2026. I cannot wait to see all that sumptuous shocking pink, Surrealism and style on show... “We try to walk a fine line between humour and camp” says Daniel Roseberry, creative director of the House of Schiaparelli. I'd expect nothing less!
• Lesbians in tights news: The famed Gentleman Jack, the TV dramatisation of the scandalous tell-all diaries of "the first modern lesbian" Anne Lister, has been adapted again... as a ballet!
• And finally: A giant asteroid that scientists feared might hit Earth, or maybe the moon, is now - thanks to new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope - predicted to miss both targets completely. Phew!

And the weather? Almost Spring-like, but more rain is on its way. Dammit.

You know you're something special and you look like you're the best

RIP, the most subtly influential of fashion designers Mr Antony Price, who departed to sort out the tailoring in Fabulon yesterday...

This lot were definitely avid fans:

Duran Duran - Rio

The art in pretending it's art; the question is where do you pay?

From an article by Mark Holgate in Vogue:

It’s hard to imagine, but Blitz (the bar), with its Dig for Victory World War II posters, kitschy red gingham tablecloths, and wooden bar sticky from spilt beer - faithfully recreated for the exhibition - wasn’t the most obvious place for a fashion revolution to happen, yet this sartorial Winter Palace, reimagined as Blitz (the club night) changed everything. If punk was a gob in the face, then New Romanticism was putting on a tiara and forgetting you were penniless. Its favoured look - theatrical, historical, bending your gender to whatever you wanted it to be, with the absolute emphasis on individualism - still resonates today.

It certainly does!

And so it was that Hils, John-John and I - "80s Kids", all - trolled off yesterday (Saturday) for swanky High Street Kensington to the Design Museum to see its new flagship exhibition, Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s.

Oh, the memories flooded in...

Among the hundreds of fascinating, and carefully-curated, items on show - including many from personal and private collections, never usually on display - were some fabulous outfits belonging to the original club-goers, such as leather garments owned by Steve Strange, a blue tartan suit designed and worn by Chris Sullivan, an outfit designed by David Holah (the co-founder of Bodymap) for Lesley Chilkes, and ensembles created and worn by Fiona Dealey (a major contributor to the exhibition):

There were cases full of flyers, scrapbooks, photos and memorabilia of that formative era - not least Gary Kemp's handwritten lyrics for the club's "house band" Spandau Ballet's To Cut A Long Story Short [see here for that!], as well as individual focus on some of the influential style magazines - including first editions - that emerged out of this uniquely stylish era, such as The Face, i:D, New Sounds New Styles and the rest.

Back to the fashions... A selection of the fantabulosa hats created for Blitz regulars by a fellow patron, milliner Stephen Jones were prominently displayed alongside photos of their inimitable wearers:

Darla Jane Gilroy's outfit from when she joined Steve Strange and fellow regulars Judi Frankland and Elise Brazier in David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes video was among my faves on show - and we had gasps at seeing the covers of some of the most familiar LP and 7" singles that made the early '80s so special on display on one bookshelf! [How many do you recognise/did you own, dear reader? I still have a number in my collection to this day...]

[click any photo to embiggen]

The recreation of the club itself - with some cleverly-done animation from original photos that made it appear as if the familiar punters were actually dancing to the music played by a similarly-AI-generated Rusty Egan in the DJ booth - was brilliantly executed, and some of our most-treasured classics of the day were playing, here and in the audio-visual area of the exhibition.

Here are just a few of the tracks that were playing yesterday, as they were back on the dancefloor at the Blitz:

David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes

Gina X - No GDM

Spandau Ballet - The Freeze

Ultravox - Vienna

Visage - Fade to Grey

Also featured was a rather faboo excerpt of a film that brings together many of the key players from the Blitz club - including Boy George, Marilyn, Gary Kemp, Midge Ure, Andy Polaris, Robert Elms, Princess Julia, Stephen Jones, Darla-Jane Gilroy and Michele Clapton - to talk about their own recollections, which I found fascinating:

Blitzed: The 80’s Blitz Kids Story trailer

[NB you can view the whole thing here]

And the last word, of course, goes to Rusty Egan:

“I don’t think Blitz invented the 80s.That was Margaret Thatcher. She was the one who created Del Boy with his Filofax. What I did was to put together a soundtrack, where everything fell into place.”

Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s is on at the Design Museum until 29th March 2026. Don't miss it!

Watch the promotional trailer:

Legendary Blitz Kids unveil new exhibition on London’s famous Blitz club

More Blitz Kids/New Romantics here, here, here and here and here - and our visit to a similar exhibition from the early 80s club scene, Leigh Bowery's Taboo here.

Pants!

As the most successful Italian couturier in history Signor Giorgio Armani has today departed for the glittering catwalks of Fabulon, here's a reprise of a post I did in tribute to the great man on his 90th last year:

As famous for underpants, watches and accessories as for his sharp suits, his was the style of choice for generations of stars of music, sport and the silver screen, politicians, dignitaries and even the Milanese police force.

Facts about Signor Armani:

• He was born in the northern Italian town of Piacenza, of Armenian and Italian descent.
• After military service as a young man, he became a window dresser at La Rinascente department store in Milan.
• Having worked on a freelance basis for myriad designers including Zegna, Cerruti and Loewe, the first pieces he designed under his own name were a series of leather bomber jackets in 1970.
• While building his fashion empire, he also designed costumes for more than one hundred films including American Gigolo and The Untouchables.
• When in 1975 he brought out a womenswear line using men's fabrics, he set the wheels in motion for the "power dressing" look that became synonymous with the 80s.
• Among his many commissions, he designed the costume worn by Spanish bullfighter Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez, the suits for the England football team (twice), and the cover of a book of gospels for the Pope.
• By the time of his death, his fortune was estimated at six billion pounds!

So world-famous was Giorgio Armani, he was name-checked in loads of songs, from rap to pop to musical theatre. Not least this one:

Pet Shop Boys - Paninaro

Ah, ah, Armani, indeed.

RIP Giorgio Armani (11th July 1934 - 4th September 2025)

Of couture, sort-of-tapestry, leaks, Superwoke and rude vegetables

RIP, Norman Tebbitt - nicknamed "The Chingford Polecat", he was for several years Maggie Thatcher's "right-hand man" and her staunchest ally.

It's another snippets post today, dear reader:

• If they fixed the leaks, this wouldn't happen news: The first UK hosepipe ban this year has been imposed in Yorkshire. Better get our garden done before we in London get banned too!
• Fraudsters - 1, A.I. - 0 news: You, too can get a bank account, even if you give your address as Buckingham Palace or 10 Downing Street! The app-based Monzo has managed to keep its licence as a "bank", despite being fined £21million for repeated failures to check applicants' credentials...
• Over Bayeux [Welsh readers and/or fans of Gavin & Stacey will get that one!] news: The world-famous Bayeux Tapestry [that isn't actually a tapestry; it's embroidered] is coming home for the first time in almost 1000 years! It will go on show in the British Museum in 2026, apparently. Now you, too can count the number of phalluses on show.

• Kooky couture news: Paris Fashion Week (Autumn/Winter 2025) is underway, and as ever, the most OTT and completely loopy creations of the couture world are on display - not least those of the House of Schiaparelli, as above! [click to embiggen]
• It's a superhero film, ffs! news: Fox News (who else?) has gone on yet another inappropriate tirade, this time accusing the new Superman film of being too "woke". Sigh.
• And finally: Possibly one of the oddest of "awareness campaigns" - this is National Pea Week! Yes, you heard correctly...

...and we know a song about that, don't we, children?

Saul T. Peter - She Sits Amongst the Cabbages and Peas

Oh, she sits among the cabbages and peas
And she talks to all the little bugs and bees.
They climb up her legs and arms
And all round her other charms.
They see lots of things nobody ever sees.

And the weather? It has been very changeable over the past few days, but apparently another "heatwave" is on its way in time for the weekend. Bring it on!

Glamour has to come from you

Dame Mary Berry is 90 today! *

Oh, how these weekends taunt us! The weather was glorious towards the end of last week, then descended to grey and murky all weekend. Now - as I head off for another sublimely fulfilling (ahem!) week in work - the forecast is for another upturn in temperatures. Sigh.

Hey, ho. Speaking of birthdays...

... today is also the 85th of that OTT creative genius Mr Bob Mackie, designer of choice for decades of ladies beloved of men-who-are-light-in-their-loafers including Mitzi Gaynor, Diana Ross, Bette Midler, Carol Burnett, Ann-Margret, and of course Cher!

"Glamour has to come from you and it has to come from confidence."

So what better way to kick off the week (in sparkling fashion as is our wont) on this Tacky Music Monday, than with Cher, Bette and Dame Elton John (and Flip Wilson), together, dressed in the most outrageous of Mr Mackie's creations?!

Elton John, Cher, Bette Midler, Flip Wilson - Cher Show final medley: Mockingbird, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, Never Can Say Goodbye and Proud Mary

And here is a musical compendium of some of his famous costumes:

Bob Mackie highlights

Robert Gordon "Bob" Mackie (born 24th March 1940)

[* and no, I don't think Dame Mary's ever worn a Bob Mackie creation!]

Cccan't You See?

On another beautiful Spring day, "our gang" (well, Madam Acarti, Hils, Crog, Our Sal and I, anyhow) have been wallowing in the memories, styles, sounds and images of an incredible era five decades ago - at the marvellous Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London exhibition at the Fashion & Textiles Museum in Bermondsey [on its last day, indeed]!

More on that later, no doubt...

...meanwhile, here's one of the songs that was playing as we wandered, eyes agape at the spectacular array of weird and wonderful outfits on display:

Vicious Pink - Cccan't You See

It's all such a long, long time ago... Sob.

Of fashion, planets, fluffy animals and homosex

"Planetary parade": from Dolores Delargo Towers we can see Venus, Mars and Jupiter - but not a sniff of Uranus! Boom-tish.

Another snippets post today, dear reader:

• Royal news: The ancient and historic St James's Palace - residence of several monarchs over the centuries, and home to the ceremonial Court of St James - is to open to public this year for the first time. We'll be getting tickets, no doubt!*

• Awwww news: London Zoo is celebrating after a "baby boom" - with a number of endangered small mammals being born. None of them edible, I believe.
• Another piece of Hollywood history is gone: Following the death of Columbia Pictures (now Sony), MGM Studios (now Amazon) and 20th Century Fox (now Disney), there's sad news of the legendary Technicolor - pioneers of the transition of films from black & white to full colour in the early 20th century, and integral to the success of all the classic early Disney cartoons and blockbusters such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind - which has gone bankrupt. RIP.

• Fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion news: The madness and the me-me-me generation that tends to accompany London Fashion Week has departed once more in a cloud of pink glitter, taking memories of Florence Pugh, Richard E Grant, Fiona Shaw and a raft of famous (and not so famous) names on the catwalk in its wake... See the gallery here.
• Drugs news: Following last week's fabulous story about a Peruvian policeman in a capybara costume who led a massive drug raid, police in Colombia this week caught a man smuggling packets of cocaine under his toupee!
• And finally: It's almost the end of LGBT History Month here in the UK and, as has been the pattern in recent years, I/we haven't been to a single event! Admittedly, we were away in Spain at the beginning of the month so missed the most interesting ones. Let's make up for that fact, shall we, with a classic? [Historical, indeed - I first posted this way back in 2008.]

Roddy von Seldeneck - Homosex Discoteque

The weather? Typical British Springtime - wet one minute, sunny the next.

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STOP PRESS:

* Not at £85 per person, we won't!

Fa-fa-fa-Fashion

A nicely slow Sunday, after the craziness of our gang's trip to the theatre last night to see the triumphal return of Barbra and Liza Live [more on that later, no doubt!]. A lie-in, a little bit of pottering in the leaf-strewn gardens of Dolores Delargo Towers, and Radio 2 all the way...

Cue another wallow in the glamorous lives of beautiful people cavorting in exotic locations, methinks, courtesy of the ever-wonderful Soft Tempo Lounge:

Soft Tempo Lounge - Fashion '67

Perfect for a Sunday. Sigh.

[Music: Alan Downey - Travel Theme (a); Original Film: Maroc 7 (1967)]

The glamorous life

Whew! What a scorcher. Just in time to be that little bit too late, we are in a heatwave here in London [and I work in an office with NO aircon]!

Never mind, eh? We need some escapism - so here's a well overdue little light music interlude - and a gawp at some truly funky outfits - courtesy to the faboo Soft Tempo Lounge. Yeah, Baby, Yeah!

Soft Tempo Lounge - Mode '71

Wow.

[Music: Mike Vickers - Light 'N' Easy]

Reality is something you rise above

• "Unless you show off, you're not going to get noticed." - Elton John.
  [above: Elton's outlandish costume for his 50th birthday party in 1997; designed by Sandy Powell - so enormous, complete with model galleon atop the wig that emitted real smoke, that he had to be transported to the party in a removal van!]

Our "gang" went en masse to the V&A's opulent DIVA exhibition (before it closes next week) yesterday. It was my, Sal's and John-John's second visit, but a first for Madam Arcati and Hils.

Here are some (more) highlights...

• "I'm too busy putting my energies into my performance to be a diva." - Shirley Bassey.
  [top left: Dame Shirley Bassey's stage costume, complete with monogrammed wellies, from Glastonbury Festival in 2007]
• "To be good is to be forgotten. I'm going to be so bad I'll always be remembered." - Theda Bara.
  [top right: Theda Bara's costume from Cleopatra, 1917; possibly her own design]
• "For me, a diva is like the great opera singer, the great film star - out of reach, in their own world, with a real gift for invention: attention-demanding performance artists with a flamboyant, compelling sense of their own importance so special and inimitable it verges on the alien." - Grace Jones.
  [bottom left: Issey Miyake bustier worn by Grace Jones on stage (it's tiny!)]
• "I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!" - Clara Bow.
  [bottom right: Clara Bow's costume from The Wild Party, 1929 - the only known surviving "flapper dress" worn by her - designed by Travis Banton]

• "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." - Marilyn Monroe.
• "I believe that it's better to be looked over than it is to be overlooked." - Mae West.
  [top left: Marilyn Monroe's "shimmy dress" from Some Like It Hot by Orry Kelly; also Mae West's diamante trimmed frock from I'm No Angel by Travis Banton]
• "When I sing, people shut up." - Barbra Streisand.
  [top right: Costume worn by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, 1968; designed by Irene Sharaff]
• "A woman has just as much right in this world as a man and can get along in it just as well if she puts her mind to it. I've lived by a man's code designed to fit a man's world, yet at the same time, I never forget that a woman's first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick." - Carole Lombard.
  [bottom left: Carole Lombard's frock from We're Not Dressing, 1934; by Travis Banton]
• “Until you’re known in my profession as a monster, you’re not a star.” - Bette Davis.
  [bottom right: Bette Davis' gown from All About Eve; by Edith Head]

• "Reality is something you rise above." - Liza Minnelli.
  [top left: Gown worn by Liza Minnelli in New York, New York; designed by Theadora Van Runkle]
• "Use your faults, use your defects; then you're going to be a star." - Edith Piaf.
  [top right: The (tiny) stage costume worn by Edith Piaf (on display alongside her comb, hairbrush and throat spray!)]
• "If I can't be me, I don't want to be anybody. I was born that way." - Joan Crawford.
  [bottom left: Joan Crawford's costume from Mildred Pierce, 1945; by Milo Anderson]
• "The only person I really believe in is me." - Debbie Harry.
  [bottom right: Outfit worn by Debbie Harry on Blondie's European tour, 1979; by Stephen Sprouse]

• “I’m sort of the patron saint of drag queens.” - Bob Mackie.
  [Stage outfits by Mr Mackie for Cher, Tina Turner, Cher and - um - Cher]
• "You're born naked, and the rest is Bob Mackie." - RuPaul.

Simply stunning...

[Madam Arcati enjoyed it so much he took every one of these photos - click any pic to embiggen.]