Glamour ( history of fashion )

Glamour is one of the most tantalizing and bewitching aspects of contemporary culture, but also one of the most elusive.

The aura of celebrity, the style of the fashion world, the vanity of the rich and beautiful, and the publicity driven rites of cafe society are all imbued with its irresistible magnetism.

But what exactly is glamour ? Where does it come from ?

How old is it ? Can anyone quite capture its magic ?

Versace f/w 1991 and supermodels

When he was killed in July 1997, Gianni Versace was hailed worldwide as the master of glitz and glamour.

The Gay Divorcee-Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers.

As a word, it was first given prominence in English in 1805 when Walter Scoot employed it in his poems The lay of the Last Minstrel, in a way to express the meaning of a magical power capable of making ordinary people, dwellings and places seem like splendid version of themselves.

If glamour could turn a frog into royal gentelman, then for sure could transform a bourgeois into a stylish gentleman, aprovincial writer into a magnificent figure of romance, a woman of dubious vitrue into a society beauty.

In terms Glamour was a function not of aristocratic social figures but of the dreams of commercial society. It had no prior existence before becoming commodified and commercialized.

The Glamour  book above is the map for a wonderful jourmey into the myths/Vamps/Princess and Princes/Kings and Queens/Movie and Music Stars.

Gloria Swanson was film actress and the most photographed woman of the post WW1 era and the shopgirl's idol.

Marlene Dietrich was turned by Josef von Sternberg into a dazzling photographic illusion.

MGM's glamour queen Greta Garbo tantalised film audiences by projecting a sumptuously sostumed, world weary sexual allure while refusing to pander to intrusive publicity.

Princess Dianna

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