A festival of aigrettes

With the "Festival of Light" Diwali coming up (11th November 2015), it is appropriate that the V&A's continuing celebration of all things Indian should turn its attention to glittering, sparkling lights...

And so it is that some 60 jewelled objects from the the fabled private collection of Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Thani are on show this autumn/winter at our favourite museum in London.

Featuring spectacular jewellery and ornamentation from the Mughal period to the present day, including original works by the best Indian craftsmen and those in the West including Cartier and Paul Iribe, some of the aigrettes and brooches alone are enough to get one salivating.

I think we may be going along. Just to measure up for the appropriate turban with which to wear them, of course.

Bejewelled Treasures: the Al Thani Collection is on at the Victoria & Albert Museum until 28th March 2016.

Hallowe'en cover-up

"Virtue has a veil, vice a mask." - Victor Hugo

A Hallowe'en guide

The Screamer

It's The Bride of Frankenstein's birthday...

"The most memorable thing I did in that film, I believe, was my screaming. In almost all my movies since, I've been called upon to scream. I don't know if it's by chance, but I would like to think that I'm not hired for that talent alone."

Our Patron Saint Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (28th October 1902 – 26th December 1986)

Read my previous entry for Elsa Lanchester

On the Jukebox here at Dolores Delargo Towers

The morns are meeker than they were

The morns are meeker than they were
The nuts are getting brown
The berry's cheek is plumper
The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarf
The field a scarlet gown
Lest I should be old fashioned
I'll put a trinket on!
- Emily Dickinson


Erté - "Manhattan"

British Summer Time is over. Time to get the sparkles out.

She made John Wayne sexy

"Every star has that certain something that stands out and compels us to notice them. As for me I have always believed my most compelling quality to be my inner strength, something I am easily able to share with an audience. I'm very comfortable in my own skin. I never thought my looks would have anything to do with becoming a star. Yet it seems that in some ways they did."

"I had always been a tomboy - I still am, at heart. I don't remember having a crush on a boy when I was a girl. I don't even remember my first kiss."

"I didn't let anyone push me into things I didn't want to do where my career was concerned. So why did I crumble when it came to men?"

"I made John Wayne sexy. I take credit for that."

"Lost in a crowd of greats, not a single Oscar. That's showbiz."

And so, farewell then to the sublimely beautiful and yet eternally down-to-earth Maureen O'Hara. We will never see her like again. And now she's gone, there are very few left from the Golden Age of Hollywood...

Maureen FitzSimons (later O'Hara, 17th August 1920 – 24th October 2015)

Read my tribute to Miss O'Hara on the occasion of her 95th birthday over at my other blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle.

Sometimes she`s too bold

"[Divine] is a real person. Sometimes she`s too bold, but she has socially redeeming qualities, no matter what she does. She`s her own person, and a lot of people like that."

"I love making people laugh. I just happen to do it dressed as a woman. It`s a part I play, and I've never confused the two."

"I asked my dad, `are you embarrassed by what I do?` And he said, `at first I was, but I feel if I made as much money wearing a dress as you do, I`d wear dresses too.'"

The sadly-missed icon of trash, John Waters acolyte and international drag superstar Divine would have been 70 years old today.

Divine (born Harris Glenn Milstead, 19th October 1945 – 7th March 1988)