They don't compare

"My gay audience has been with me from the beginning."



"I'm just a natural flirt, but I don't see it in a sexual way. A lot of the time I'm like an overexcited puppy."



"Let's just say that I am aware my style has meaning for some people."



"I've had a lot of tragic hairdos and outfits."



"I do dance music, and I can be pretty camp myself from time to time."



"I just can't help but see things differently."



"All the lovers, that have gone before, they don't compare... to you!"

Kylie Minogue - All The Lovers

Happy 50th birthday today to our ultimate Princess and Patron Saint, Miss Kylie Ann Minogue OBE (born 28th May 1968)!

[We still do "The Kylie Wave" (based upon that video) wherever and whenever we get the opportunity; most recently in the "Mens Bar" in La Nogalera, Torremolinos...]

And by way of a bonus, this:

Kylie Minogue with Katherine Jenkins - Your Disco Needs You (live at the Royal Albert Hall)

Kylie, Queen of Camp? NEVER!

Amazing Grace

The most scary woman on the planet - Miss Grace Jones is 70 years old today!

Time to get down on your knees...

Grace Jones - On Your Knees

Grace Beverly Jones (born 19th May 1948)

See our previous exhibit here.

I even sang in my dreams

Was there ever a more truly Wagnerian singer than Birgit Nilsson..? It seems unlikely that her Isolde and Brünnhilde will ever be equalled, let alone surpassed. She brought to these roles all the qualities their composer could possibly have wished: a voice of heroic proportions, a remarkable musicality, an interpretative imagination as incandescent as the music itself and a technique as solid as the rock on which the latter heroine slept for 20 years. Even her laughter, though it was only heard offstage, rang like the Valkyries' "Ho-yo-to-ho". - The Guardian

We have a centenary today to celebrate - one of the greatest of all operatic singers, a national icon in her native Sweden, Miss Birgit Nilsson.

"You must always expect the very best. You must aim for the stars in order to hit the trees. One has to put the expectations very high, and sometimes it's a burden." - Birgit Nilsson

Renowned for her virtuosity as a Wagnerian soprano, her voice was admired for its overwhelming force, bountiful reserves of power, and the gleaming brilliance and clarity in the upper register. She once told an interviewer that she could sing before she could walk, adding, "I even sang in my dreams". She was also a very funny lady: after a disagreement with the Australian soprano Joan Sutherland, Nilsson was asked if she thought Sutherland's famous bouffant hairdo was real. She answered: "I don't know. I haven't pulled it yet."

Birgit Nilsson - In questa reggia (Puccini - Turandot)

Birgit Nilsson - Liebestod (Wagner - Tristan und Isolde)

Birgit Nilsson - Dich Teure Halle (Wagner - Tannhauser)

She didn't just stick to high opera, either. She often ended a recital with a rousing - and unexpected - rendition of I Could Have Danced All Night from Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady - see my previous tribute to Miss Nilssen for that.

Here, for those of you who would like to wallow in the great lady's sumptuous voice for almost a full hour, is a centenary treat. [2021 UPDATE: gone from the interwebs]

As for (the signed) photo #2 at the top of this post, she nestles quite neatly between Joans Crawford and Collins, Miss Lipman and Al Pillay on the wall at Dolores Delargo Towers #4, n'est ce pas?



Märta Birgit Nilsson (17th May 1918 – 25th December 2005)

Create a new style

"I live life in the margins of society, and the rules of normal society don't apply to those who live on the fringe."

"My goal is never to copy. Create a new style."

From The Art Story website:

Tamara de Lempicka was the lone traditional easel painter in the entirety of the Art Deco style. Her sources of inspiration ranged dramatically: she adored Italian Renaissance painting; she was characterized by critics as a sort of modern-day Ingres, although the comparisons were more often not intended to flatter; she absorbed the avant garde art of the era - particularly post-cubist abstraction but of a "softened" style. Perhaps most influential was Lempicka's desire to capitalize on her social connections to create a niche for her portraiture, which most often featured well-to-do, cosmopolitan types.

The Art Deco style, lavish in a less visually complex way than its predecessor, Art Nouveau, was probably the ideal vehicle for her trendy style. Most notably, despite its decorative quality, her work provided her with an outlet for unconventional self-expression: truly a product of her era, the libertine golden age between the two world wars, Lempicka, a bisexual, made bold, liberated female sexuality the lynchpin of her art.

Needless to say, we at Dolores Delargo Towers adore her - as does Google, paying tribute to her today with a Google Doodle on the occasion of her 120th birthday.



Tamara de Lempicka (born Maria Górska, 16 May 1898 – 18th March 1980)

Life is a party. Dress for it.*

"The things that make us different, those are our superpowers - every day when you walk out the door and put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world; because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren’t in it."

- the extraordinary Lena Waithe, who wore a rainbow flag chasuble to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute annual Gala, which, to coincide with its new exhibition, was on the theme “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”

Among many others from the ranks of the great and the good and the not-so-good; also in attendance at this fanciest-of-fancy-dress parties were Rihanna as a diamanté Pope:



Queen Madge as... The Madonna:



Zendaya ["Whooooo?"] as Joan of Arc:



...and Katy Perry as a fallen angel:



My invitation obviously got lost in the post.

*quoth Audrey Hepburn.

Hedda says...

..."I think today should be a 'Say Something Hat' day, don't you?"



"I can wear a hat or take it off, but either way it's a conversation piece."

Hedda Hopper (born Elda Furry, 2nd May 1885 – 1st February 1966)