Dolores Delargo Towers - Museum of Camp

Sunday, 22 December 2024

On the Jukebox this weekend here at Dolores Delargo Towers

...but will any of 'em end up on our New Year's Eve playlist? Time will tell.

Saturday, 14 December 2024

I dared

"Style doesn't have seasons."
"You have to want to dare being a model. You have to dare or you don't go that step further. You have to be willing to stretch - and to not only be willing to stretch, but to want to stretch."
"A lot of women say to me, 'Polly, why aren't there more clothes out there that we can wear?' And I don't agree with them! There are clothes out there that they can wear - it's just that they don't dare to wear them."
"I personally do not think that I have ever done, in my working life, anything vulgar. I know I've done provocative things."
"I like to take things further. Too often, stylists do things to please because they are going to be accepted. You lose the magic that way. You can’t give something special to your readers unless you dare. I was a stronger woman behind the camera than I was in real life. I dared."

And so, farewell, the remarkable stylist and fashion editor Polly Mellen, who has departed to zhoosh-up the glittering catwalks of Fabulon at the venerable age of 100.

Unsurprisingly, during her long career in the fashion world she knew everyone who was everyone - growing up in Connecticut, she was acquainted with the young Katherine Hepburn; a friend-of-a-friend Sally Kirkland (future editor of Vogue) recommended her to Diana Vreeland, who gave Miss Mellon her big break at Harpers Bizarre, and then Vogue; she worked with photographers Helmut Newton and Irving Penn, and her collaborations with Richard Avedon became iconic; she worked with just about every couturier from Cristóbal Balenciaga to Halston to Alistair McQueen, Calvin Klein, Isaac Mizrahi, Vera Wang and Viktor & Rolf, and nurtured the careers of a host of supermodels that included Penelope Tree, Patti Hansen, Lauren Hutton, Nastassja Kinski, Janice Dickinson, Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista, and dozens more.

A most influential fashionista, indeed!

RIP, Polly Allen Mellen (18th June 1924 – 12th December 2024)

Monday, 9 December 2024

Judi's a slag!

Judi and Maggie being pampered

The magnificent Dame Judi Dench is 90 years old today! All hail.

Many and varied are the tributes being paid to the great lady, but quite possibly the most unexpected one is from her pet African grey parrot, Sweetie:

“We had a long chat just now. You shouldn’t ask what she says. She says: ‘You’re a slut’, ‘you’re a slag’!”
“Honest to God, it’s true,” Dench said. “I don’t know where she learned the timing.”

Many happy returns, Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9th December 1934)