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Fashion Icon: Pamela Des Barres

1960s, fashion icon of the moment, groupies, pamela des barres

Fashion Icon: Pamela Des Barres

I was recently loaned a copy of I’m With The Band and felt a natural affinity to Miss Pamela’s romantic ups and downs. Her desire to find her niche in life is very powerfully expressed and she’s an engaging hostess for her own life story. Perhaps because she was amongst the first recognised groupies, you feel she’s more genuine than most who followed in her wake. She really was genuinely being swept along by the music and the sexual revolution of the Sixties, rather than seeking the celebrity which so many seem to be motivated towards. And, of course, the word ‘groupie’ has different meanings for different people: for the Girls Together Outrageously it was clearly more about comradeship.

She was also attainably gorgeous. Even before I had read the book, I knew her as an absolute style icon. One of the handful of such women who could actually convince me to go blonde, because it just looks so fantastic on her. That soft, hippy look which was usually quite homemade and ramshackle – giving it an extra level of charm. Remnants and rags were stitched together to create dresses which look like they’ve been sized up from a tatty Victorian doll, and she painted the biggest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. Then in the early Seventies she darkened her hair and smartened up her look for a full-on vamp groupie look, with platforms and stockings, curls and lipstick. She still looks incredible now, and from what I hear is an incredibly lovely person. So, Miss Pamela, we salute you!

For Queen and Country: Rayne Shoes

emma peel, shoes, Things I wish I owned

I find I have become quite, quite transfixed by these shoes just listed on eBay. They sort of look like they should be hideous. In the wrong hands they would have been hideous. But they’re not hideous. They’re beautiful. They’re green, they’re silk, they’re diamante.


Rayne shoes were of a very high quality, being shoemakers to the Queen and all that. Mr Rayne also made the shoes Diana Rigg wore in The Avengers. So you know you’re getting something good with Rayne.

They’re also about a size too small for Miss Muggins here, but please someone with 5½ feet buy them. I can’t promise you won’t be so transfixed that you’ll find yourself staring down at them all the time and keep bumping into people, but it’s probably a price worth paying.

Coooooo, Mavis, ain’t they gawgeous!

Farewell to the best purr in history…..

eartha kitt, marilyn monroe

I really need to stop talking about famous people who are in their twilight years. Firstly I was discussing Harold Pinter on Christmas Eve, then Eartha Kitt on Christmas Day. Either I’m psychic or slightly responsible. Not sure I’m comfortable with either.

Anyway, Pinter was no particularly great icon to me (Though I enjoyed Betrayal at the Donmar recently….Toby Stephens…..mmmm). But Eartha???? I loved Eartha.

She wasn’t even my favourite Catwoman. Although given that she was up against the magnificent Julie “Seven Brides” Newmar in my affections it’s not entirely unexpected. But an LP of her singing Live at Tivoli from my grandparents’ house became regular listening for me when I was younger. I’ve never been crazy about very refined singers, I like my girls to sound a bit breathy and natural. Wobbles in the voice and all (hence the great Marilyn love). Clearly Ms. Kitt was a superior singer to Ms. Monroe, but they both engaged me in a way very few other singers can.

I was also slightly freaked out by how much she actually resembled a cat. But freaked out in an I-think-it’s-awesome kind of way.

So now the great lady has passed away, on Christmas Day of all days, and I’ve remembered how important she was to me a few years ago. I may have to go out and find an album or two to reaquaint myself. Eartha, I salute you! Rowwwwrrrrrrrrr!






Fashion Icon: Charlotte Rampling

charlotte rampling, fashion icon of the moment

Charlotte Rampling is one of those people whose elegance, stylishness and general coolness is so great that you can spend your whole life trying to achieve something vaguely approaching the same. You will, of course, never succeed. It’s either there, or it’s not. But you can have a lot of fun trying!

Even in her most Swinging Sixties moments, she looked timeless, classic and romantic. Which is more inspirational to me, actually, because I am not at all fond of the harsh ‘mod’ look. So I look to ladies like Charlotte Rampling to inspire me. She had longer, less heavily styled hair and wore prettier, softer clothes. In the Seventies, she moved into her prime in floaty Ossie chiffons and Thirties inspired tailoring. A look which appears to have been very natural to her, she looks far more elegant and sophisticated than most people attempting that look.

She also remains one of the most beautiful ladies around today, seemingly without the aid of surgery. Fond of nudity, even still, it was actually surprisingly hard to find photos of her with her clothes on! She takes on interesting roles, has had a varied and generally very well-played career and continues to make bold choices. Then, and now, Charlotte Rampling we salute you!

Top Five Tasty Vintage Blokes

crushes, diana rigg, marc bolan, oliver reed, Pattie Boyd, The Beatles

….In the “those sadly no longer with us category”.

Number Five:


Clark Gable. Not so much for Gone With the Wind services, but for It Happened One Night which is one of my favourite films of all time. The sexual chemistry between Gable and Claudette Colbert is crackling, and it renders him totally irresistable. I was umming and aahhing between Gable and Gregory Peck for the ‘old school’ filmstar Vintage Bloke, but decided Peck (though gorgeous and wonderful in Roman Holiday particularly) was far too clean and smooth looking for my tastes.

Number Four:

Gareth Hunt in The New Avengers. I’ve had a soft spot for poor Gareth Hunt (poor because the man became rhyming slang for something unrepeatable) for years. But seeing him in his youth more recently in The New Avengers. Rowrrrrrrrrr!! He’s a proper blokey bloke, but very sweet with Purdey (the luminous Jo-Lum) and well, it’s inevitable I’d like him isn’t it? He’s so Seventies it hurts!

Number Three:

Marc Bolan. Le sigh. Pretty pretty pretty!! He wore ladies clothes with great aplomb and had the most phenomenal hair. He’s just indescribable, so I’m not going to try…

Number Two:

George Harrison. Seems I chose the right Beatle for my favourite (John Lennon is the only one who has never been my favourite, I think he’s a bit too prickly for me to love him unconditionally). And now he’s sadly left this world, he can’t ruin it all and taint our view of him like Paul and Ringo regularly do. His songs are also my favourite of all Beatles songs, and I think his solo career has been my favourite too. Soulful eyes, beautiful hair and that mystical, serious, quiet persona. If I can still love him after reading Pattie’s autobiography, which is incredible but so sad it can be very hard to read at times, then it must be true love.

Number One:

Oliver Reed. If I had known Olly in his youth, or at any point quite frankly, I know I couldn’t have put up with him. I’d have probably thumped him one on a regular basis, if he didn’t thump me first, and knowing that he liked his women to have ‘traditional’ values he probably couldn’t have put up with me either. But the man was a walking chunk of sex. If you’ve never quite ‘got’ the Oliver Reed thing, just watch The Assassination Bureau with Diana Rigg. Trust me. I know I still haven’t ever recovered.

Some eBay Picks

1970s, emma peel, eye candy, platforms, Things I wish I owned

Damn my big feet and head…..here are a couple of fabulous pieces which will never fit me but I would kill to own. Please buy and enjoy them!

I always become obsessed with hats in the winter. Sadly I only have a handful (and only two vintage) because I have quite a large head. Graduation day was entertaining I can tell you. I will post my two beloved hats at some point, a floppy felt number in aubergine with teardrop cut outs (very Biba) and a green suede Emma Peel hat by Edward Mann (who actually made the Emma Peel hats, so it’s a proper one too!!). If you ever see a great vintage hat with an inner measurement of about 23-24″, then give me a shout! I’ll probably want it! This one, the seller tells me, is a slightly stretchy 20″. But I’m not sure it could be 3-4″ stretchy!!

Dhani look like his Daddy?

dhani harrison, george harrison, Pattie Boyd, The Beatles
Apologies for the very poor pun in the title, I couldn’t help myself.

Is it wrong to worship Dhani Harrison as some kind of reincarnation of his beautiful father? I’ve always resisted before now, because it seemed very, very wrong.

Well, if it was wrong before I don’t suppose it can be wrong now he’s gone and let himself be photographed AS his beautiful father. Although the supermodel he’s posing with can’t hold a matchstick, let alone a candle, to the magnificent Pattie Boyd. She looks like a prize prat for even trying. But Dhani…..*sigh*….just look at him, let the beauty wash over you and pray that they get around to cloning all the Beatles for every generation.

Fashion Icon of the Moment: Perri Lister

1980s, Duran Duran, fashion icon of the moment, new romantic, perri lister

One time Hot Gossip dancer, member of Steve Strange’s Visage, long term girlfriend of Billy Idol and the gyrating topless blonde in The Chauffeur video, Perri Lister is an absolute icon of all that was fabulous about the early Eighties.

With those huge, feline eyes always made-up beautifully to the hilt and her angular but still feminine figure…oh, and that insanely frothy, madly coloured hair, she is the very essence of the New Romantic ethos.

No mere arm candy was she though. As well as being a talented dancer, she co-wrote many of Billy’s biggest hits and provided vocals for him, for Visage and for her own short-lived group, Boomerang.

She’s also still completely beautiful and seemingly hasn’t aged a bit since her Eighties heyday. Perri, we salute you…and request personal make-up lessons immediately!

The Chauffeur. Lack of Durans are slightly made-up-for by fabulously evocative and stylish video (and Perri of course!)

On Italian TV with Visage performing Fade To Grey

The LEGendary Cyd Charisse RIP

cyd charisse, hollywood icons


It seems bizarrely appropriate that while I’m currently surrounded by finger waves, sequins, tulle and ballet shoes that the phenomenal Cyd Charisse should pass away. She began her career with the Ballet Russes, a training which would come in handy for working with the likes of Gene Kelly when she found success in Hollywood.

“If I was black and blue,” she said, “it was Gene. And if it was Fred, I didn’t have a scratch.”

Like most people, I was borderline obsessed with her segment from Singing in the Rain and that spectacular green pseudo-flapper dress she wore. Who wouldn’t want legs that long, or a face that sultry and oh such beautiful hair? I also realised I was obsessed -as a child- with a photo that my film-loving Uncle (kudos to him for having given me a life-long obsession with the Hollywood classics!) had, amongst many others, of Charisse and Astaire hanging on his wall.


I have little more to say, because it’s all been said. So I’ll leave you with a few more favourite pictures and mourn the loss of yet another classy, glamorous lady. We have so few left these days……



Emmapeel… dress

1960s, alun hughes, avengers, avengerswear, diana rigg, emma peel, eye candy, john bates, personal collection, vintage fangirl squee

I alluded, in an earlier post, to having recently acquired an original Avengerswear piece. Now before you go getting too excited on my behalf (because, you know, I imagine you would…..), it’s not a John Bates one. That remains my holy grail of collecting…

Diana and Alun

In the first colour season of The Avengers, Alun Hughes took over from John Bates as costume designer. Although strictly speaking Bates was never the costume designer per se, he simply provided Mrs Peel with a fully equipped working mod-girl wardrobe. Which would be used in various ways by the designer and whoever else happened to be making such decisions. Explaining why so many fabulous outfits, in which Diana Rigg was heavily photographed for publicity, made only brief appearances – if at all.

The colour episodes had been intended to be designed in a similar ‘working wardrobe’ manner by Pierre Cardin, who was already creating Steed’s very elegant suits [Shocking! A Frenchman designing our beloved Avengers? Whatever next??], but he was unable to complete the task and Hughes was brought on board as designer instead. Unfortunately I know very little about the man himself, but it would seem he actually was a costume designer rather than a fashion designer like Bates or Cardin. With the new colour format, and the strong overseas interest in the show, Hughes had new challenges to those of Bates with the black and white. He attacked it with gusto, using vivid colours, prints and playing with new synthetic fabrics. There’s also the varied influences, reflecting the ever-changing fashion scene of the time. We still have space-age cut-outs and skin tight gear, but also feathers and psychedelic silks. The look is more way-out, and more feminine than ever. He also invented the Emmapeeler, which was a more ‘Pop’ take on the leather and pvc catsuits of the earlier series.

“Don’t diss my mustard emmapeelers!”

As with Bates, and Frederick Starke before him, an Avengerswear range of clothes was produced and licensed out to different manufacturers and shops. Unlike Bates, whose Avengerswear collection was largely complete replicas of the Mrs Peel-worn originals, Hughes’ designs were used as templates for a wider range of colours and styles. Most items were produced in different colourways to the one seen on screen, again unlike Bates who was largely working in black and white anyway, and it would also seem that some items were produced in different lengths.

This stunning moire patterned velvet dress is clearly the same design as the one she wears in Return Of The Cybernauts. Emma’s is black (or perhaps dark green, it’s difficult to tell with early colour television) and a mini. Mine is purple and a maxi length. Nevertheless, it’s my first – and possibly only piece of Hughes’ Avengerswear and I feel very honoured to now have it in my possession.