The other "Unsinkable Molly"

In her time, she was fashion editor for The Sunday Times, penned successful erotic "bonk-buster" books, started a bistro, designed hats for hip fashion store Biba, was a judge at the Alternative Miss World contest from its outset, presided over orgies in New York, was a regular at the debauched and notorious Colony Club, was banned from BBC chat shows for swearing, and became a much-lauded designer and painter in avant garde circles in her later years; she counted numerous "counter-culture" characters such as Quentin Crisp, Andy Warhol, Mary Quant, Francis Bacon, Anita Pallenberg and The Communards' Sarah Jane Morris among her friends; and her myriad lovers included James Robertson Justice, George Melly, Anthony Shaffer, John Thaw, Bo Diddley, John Mortimer - and she snogged Louis Armstrong!

What a life dear Molly Parkin - who has very sadly departed for Fabulon, presumably to cause havoc - had!

We adored her...

She certainly was never afraid of portraying sex (nor performing it, by all accounts)! [photo: Rob Greig]

Divine and Molly Parkin, taken at the London premiere of 'The Alternative Miss World' at The Gate Cinema in Notting Hill in 1980.

Molly and me, photographed at Polari way back in 2010...

RIP Molly Noyle Parkin (née Thomas, 3rd February 1932 – 5th January 2026)

The female Liberace

A sadly overlooked camp legend died recently. From her obituary in The Telegraph:

During live broadcasts of Oh Boy! on ITV in the late 1950s, its procession of chiefly male idols passed so swiftly before the cameras that screaming girls scarcely had pause to draw breath. However, screams became cheers for Cherry Wainer, seated at an upholstered Hammond organ as part of the programme’s house band, Lord Rockingham’s XI. With her grinning vibrancy and ping-pong eyes, Cherry was adored more as an admired elder sister.

While chart entries proved elusive for Wainer in her own right, a maiden Rockingham single, Fried Onions, made the US Hot 100. Hoots Mon, the follow-up, was a domestic No 1 – and was heard on a section of Oh Boy! featured in the 1959 Royal Command Performance. Wainer became the focal point of the band – publicised as “the female Liberace” – with solo spots as both a singer and instrumentalist.

“I had my Hammond customised with quilted white-leather and diamanté studs,” she recalled. “Also, my poodle used to sit next to me. I loved every minute of it – being recognised in the street, signing autographs and when fans washed my pink saloon car when it was parked outside the hall in Islington where every 'Oh Boy!' was rehearsed.”

She certainly was "something else"...

Here she is in all her glamorous glory with Last Night:

Cherry Wainer - Last Night (1963)

Again with hubby Don Storer - Green Onions:

Cherry Wainer - Green Onions

And here she just last year on BBC4's 50s Britannia talking about her time as "the first lady of Rock'n'Roll":

RIP Miss Cherry Wainer (2nd March 1935 – 15th November 2014)

Vulgarity is life

The Swinging Miss Mary Quant.

...she's 80, you know?!

"Fashion is not frivolous. It is a part of being alive today."

"The fashionable woman wears clothes. The clothes don't wear her."

“I love vulgarity, good taste is death, vulgarity is life.”

"A woman is as young as her knees."

Mary Quant OBE, FCSD, RDI (born 11th February 1934)

A skinny body with long asparagus legs

"...the classic Biba dolly...was very pretty and young. She had an upturned nose, rosy cheeks and a skinny body with long asparagus legs and tiny feet. She was square-shouldered and quite flat-chested. Her head was perched on a long, swanlike neck. Her face was a perfect oval, her lids were heavy with long, spiky lashes. She looked sweet but was as hard as nails. She did what she felt like at that moment and had no mum to influence her judgement."

"I had a special spot by the door for things that weren't selling so well, for people to steal. I called it shoplifter's corner."

"Some contemporary fashion is fantastic, but it's so weird ...and it's so diverse that I don't know how people my age keep up. I just stick to wearing black."



Barbara Hulanicki, founder of the legendary 60s/70s mega-boutique Biba, who becomes an OBE for services to fashion in the New Year Honours list.



The history of Biba

In

The young "in" group, 1967, by Lord Patrick Litchfield

Back row (left to right) Susannah York, Peter S Cook, Tom Courtenay, Twiggy, centre row (left to right) Joe Orton, Michael Fish, front row (left to right) Miranda Chiu, Lucy Fleming.