Mrs. Thatcher's boy-friends

I cannot say that I have ever dated 'Maggie', Sydney Grew, she actually belongs to my grandparents' generation, but I have, in younger days, 'walked out' with girls who bear certain similarities. She was a scientist at university, for a start, and in my student days, I did date many a scientist, although none, I suspect, who could be mistaken for a Maggie!

Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth; but, either it was different in blood ...

There is always the question of who wears the trousers, so to speak, in such relationships, Sydney Grew, and in my experience, it is always going to be the fairer sex! Is this enough of an answer for you, Sydney Grew?

The Iron Lady preferred a bit more glamour, it seems, ahinton. As it happens, the principal first floor rooms of Goldsmiths’ Hall in the heart of the City of London have been transformed into an elegant Parisian salon of the 'thirties, so the summer exhibition takes us back to an age of glamour, something I suspect that the late Baroness Thatcher would have enjoyed. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun, Maggie?

Goldsmiths - Ultra Vanities

'Ultra Vanities' features an extensive private collection of more than two hundred glamorous make-up cases from the 'twenties through to the 'seventies, including designs by some of the world's most revered jewellery brands, such as Cartier, Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels and Chaumet. The leading jewellery houses of the time created these unique "nécessaire de beauté" for their fashionable clientele, who required somewhere to keep all their essentials. Miniature marvels with spaces for a powder compact, lipstick, comb, cigarette holder, mirror and, occasionally, a little note pad and pencil, they chart the changing styles through the decades, from the sleek, elegant Art Deco period to the flamboyant 'seventies, via the colourful 'fifties.



The Jewellery Editor - Ultra Vanities at Goldsmiths Hall in London: Bejewelled Makeup Boxes from the Age of Glamour

Writing in the FT, Claire Adler reports that it would be easy to think such objects might be useful for keeping the true extent of a lady’s vanity a closely guarded secret, but evidently this was not the case. “Women would put make-up on in public at dinner, or in nightclubs. It was a liberated and brave new world thing to do,” says Meredith Etherington-Smith.



Lovers and collectors of haute couture as well as jewellery are expected to visit the exhibition. Unsurprisingly, such pieces have a collector’s appeal. At a Christie’s auction in Geneva in 2012, a blackened gold evening bag by Marina B in the form of an elephant, set with yellow and white diamonds and pearls, soared past its pre-sale estimate to fetch a handsome SFr99,000 ($347,000).

“The Ultra Vanities collection is fascinating not only because of the exquisite workmanship and the miracles of miniature engineering that go into their interiors, but because it shows the power these glittering relics have to evoke a vanished age of elegance,” says Meredith Etherington-Smith.

FT - Vanity cases: Encrusted bags evoke an age of elegance

Had Willie managed to find a vanity case for Maggie, Sydney Grew, my guess would be that she would have gone for him. Cheers, all (Wednesday morning breakfast coffee)!





Camden Review - Ultra Vanities

Well, William the Conqueror, or 'Guillaume le Bâtard', as he was known to his French enemies, was something of a Willie, too, and we might yet see a King William V crowned in Westminster Abbey! Bill, Will or Wills are probably better nicknames?

The suggestion has ruined my appetite for lunch...

According to the O.E.D., the origin of the word "galavant" or "gallivant" is unclear. "Perhaps a humorous perversion of GALLANT," the editors suggest. And for the meaning they say "To gad about in a showy fashion, especially with persons of the other sex. Also merely = FLIRT."

Well there at once is another question: of "gad" they in turn say, "Of obscure origin. The common view, that it is from the noun 'gad' (the supposed primary sense being 'to rush about like an animal stung by gad-flies') is possible, but does not appear to be favoured by our quotations. Possibly it was a back-formation from 'gadling' in its later sense of 'vagabond.'"

And as primary meaning this: "To go from one place to another, to wander; especially to wander about with no serious object, stopping here and there, to rove idly. Also to 'gad about, abroad, out.'"

It is all somewhat unsatisfactory do members not find? Never can mere suggestion be enough!