REAL IMITATION PLASTIC

When I see gold buttons on a jacket in a shop I want to put it on.  Smart double breasted two rows of buttons and almost any jacket in any colour thrills me and I want to buy it, Michael Jackson clearly felt the same. Uniforms for me are sexy and always have been, there is structure to them, a health regime, a better nipped in waist, physical discipline.  I like feminine authority to be a force to be reckoned with.  Unfortunately, there is no real Hollywood Glamour, Irene of Hollywood is not making any gowns anymore.  Travilla who made Marilyn's dress is not available as he is knocking up the daisies. Most of the designer's people are wearing at the Oscars were simply not good enough. There were not intricate patterns to make a body the right shape. You want to look good at every angle. Nowadays you can buy really cheap clothes but you must look in a mirror and look your bottom.  I am the black queen but I like a dash of turquoise, pink, green or white. I hate huge flowers on the bottom and generally I love tailoring.

The styling of Rushka Bergman  is excellent if I am going to learn anything from anybody, I like her vivacity, her belief in a system that is slipping away quickly.
I generally dislike peddle pushers because unless you really suit them you look terrible. I think over 50 "girlie" is a problem, my little black dresses can make me look young from behind and then, turn around and my salad days are over. I love looking womanly, elegant, slim, a queen, I like to look a mysterious woman, it's why I like to go the Mayr Clinic, it's why I have bright blonde hair and a dash of red lipstick. It is all very well to look androgynous but you need to be a woman too.

MARLENE DIETRICH IN BLUE ANGEL

 I cannot get excited by this dreadful new fabric made out of acetate, that catches you across the bosom, I do not want cheap and nasty throw away clothes. Vile. I do not want to look like the music teacher or the librarian. I do not want to look like everybody else, I do not want to dress head to toe in recognisable labels. Sadly, I was the only person the other day wore a hat  with a veil at a funeral. I have seen incredible clothes, I am not like everybody else. It seems people are not looking to see if they look alluring?. I do not want to look matronly and I do not want to look like a Russian hooker.

I do not need any other person to assemble me, for better of worse, I like to wear what I like to wear. Beware of spending money to buy "style" you cannot buy style but you can lend beauty.  Last week I went shopping for clothes and it wasn't the big names I bought but the next layer down as the fit was better, the cut more suitable for a female figure The fabric more tactile. I got compliments from journalists at The Daily Mail and Liberatum this week for my Alexander McQueen jacket. Sarah Burton has continued Alexander's strong look, I however. have clothes from twenty years ago which are powerful and I can still wear.
People forget today to wear gloves  they are so useful, they make middle aged hands elegant slim and you can dress them up or down, whether you add a ring or buttons. The choice is yours. I also love broaches rather than necklaces as they are more comfortable. I love little fake diamante broaches in the shape of butterflies and animals. You can find so many in vintage shops. We have allowed practicality to rule and not individuality.  P.S Make sure you have clean knickers on as you may get run over. Any clothes that mimic sex organs work, look at Audrey Beardsley drawings. This look is not politically correct, nowadays women seem to like donkey jackets, floral skirts, leggings and plastic shoes, pas pour Moi.   I want to look like the women in How to Marry a Millionaire or Gilda, Marlene Dietrich in Blue Angel.

MARLENE DIETRICH IN BLUE ANGEL

I went around to Dr. Sebagh's the other day and he applied the fantastic machine to my skin. I then went with Trinny to find makeup, my make up was too thick by Dolce Gabbana, the foundation too white and instead I tried Terry's Densiless Foundation. I do not care who makes the makeup as long as it keeps me fuckable, and ten minutes younger. I do not want to be some flabby middle aged washed up old bag. The makeup looked so thick that I looked like Kitty from re runs of Gun Smoke.  The whole point of makeup is to make old skin, young. Otherwise, what I am doing it all for? Trinny knows her stuff as we went around SpaceNK in Nottinghill Gate. Really I like to have a thorough beesting and the makeup has to be high performance, shag proof. I do not like shiny makeup it looks great on women of colour. I felt jealousy as they looked beautiful in bright blue eyeshadow and bright pink lipstick. Not many white women can carry that look off.  I think they are best left in a bubble pack, as a free gift on the front of Woman's Own. Women's Weekly have fabulous throwaway sunglasses you will need them for the iridescent palettes. I was rescued by Trinny just before I became Baby Jane Hudson.
I am rushing out now to grasp next months copy of Italian Vogue.

Albion Voice

AMANDA ELIASCH SPEECH FOR LIBERATUM CULTURE TO INTRODUCING COURTNEY LOVE introduced by DYLAN JONES

SPEECH FOR LIBERATUM CULTURE INTRODUCING COURTNEY LOVE

PHOTOGRAPH BY INES DE LA ROCHE

SPEECH AMANDA ELIASCH for LIBERATUM introducing COURTNEY LOVE
"Imagine my excitement to be here today, it is a huge treat.
Women are striving for equality and creativity everywhere we look, From 200 hundred years ago and later the Secession Period when women threw away their corsets, Women are making notable inroads creating the world we live in today, working still within masculine
templates provided, we are fighting for the world we wish to live in. We still do not have equality in pay and there is still Sharia Law and blondes are still considered blonde, despite it coming out of a bottle because it says so on the bottle. 

Women in England defied the opposition in the last war with their violent and valiant lipstick. We need structure to show a woman's ability and luckily for me I was invited by Pablo Ganguli the founder and creator of Liberation to join the elite band of people striving for artistic opportunity, insisting on culture and beauty, proving that Plato was right when he repeated in his Apology what Socrates had said at his trial "An unexamined life IS not a life worth living".
It is an excellent platform to express ourselves, this Pablo has achieved with flourish tenacity and elegance. Nicole Kidman Victoria Beckham and

Susan Sarandon becoming the backbone for
a wonderful band of forerunners. 

It is rather like Father Christmas, Easter Sunday, Hannukah and Ede all at the same time.  There are still some dark corners of this planet that Liberatum has to enlighten, and one spark of light lightens a whole forest.
Thank you to St Martin's Hotel for hosting this event and now here we have Dylan Jones editor of the most Male of Male magazines, GQ, to pose interesting thought provoking questions to the inspirational Rock Icon, strident and amazonian defender and upholder of women's rights, I give you the unmistakable, Courtney LOVE"

TATLER's PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE EVENING

AMANDA ELIASCH, COURTNEY LOVE AND PABLO GANGULI
FOR LIBERATUM CULTURE AT ST MARTIN'S HOTEL AND CHEYNE WALK
THE DAILY MAIL
WOMEN IN CREATIVITY SERIES
WOMEN's WEEK

We don't want to fight with men we are okay, we have a great life, we are helping those that are unable to help themselves. There are and have been just as many sociopathic women running the world, eg Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Winny Mandella, Nancy Regan.  Hillary was already running the country when Mr. Clinton was enjoying his cigar, and sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar. There are no problems except if you are a teacher who doesn't receive the same pay as a man. We are equal we are not treated as such and we live within male templates. Half the workforce are women. In the House of Commons last week it was mostly Asian and women of colour who indeed have problems. Female circumcision to start with. This is child abuse, you could argue the same for men. It is a financial, political situation.

Women's equality is not about gender, it is about equal consideration. We have to get our finger out we might be made to wear the burka, after all, Nigella Lawson, our spoon licking whipped cream goddess has already been spotted squeezed into a burkini, wanting to be highly visible under the illusion of being invisible. 
Why do we want to be equal when we are actually unique?

Women are fighting so many battles and are trying to fight off the burka for an iPhone and a 50inch television.  I don't mind the burka in Syria it is congruent with the religion and thought to be normal. Here is England it is positively rude to hide eyes with a niqab, and covering your body with a burka, showing dishonesty. They do not want our bikini so I do not want their burkini.  If 15,000 English female cheerleaders walked  into Tehran today in a mini skirt with baton what kind of reception do you think they would get? Women want power, not equality.

MORE FLASH, CARE AND FLARE PLEASE

There are loads of gay footballers I am told, gay policeman, gay film stars, so who cares anymore when we see two men kissing down the street?  I don't, except on the rare occasions, I might fancy one of them. Last night I was invited to the premiere of  the LGBT Film Festival,  FLARE, to the film "The Pass" which I felt was a little out of date on its point about gays, or rather as they said "queers", a word which is too old fashioned for me and I find insulting. In our society today contrary to what the film suggested, gay couples are able to hold hands, able to celebrate life together, have children and live openly, Transgender is accepted too. The film was out of date and a tiny bit patronising, it opened this now impressive and substantial Film Festival which has been celebrating the coming out of gay couples for 35 years. Congratulations to them and what they have achieved. I just thought the film was not good enough. It may have got good reviews, but it is not up to date, and I do not know any gay men holding back on how they feel? A good play, that made a dreary film, transferred from The Royal Court to the Silver Screen. This worried me about the attitude within the film world at the moment, the smugness, the inability to see good work,  too pleased with 'ordinary', too much slapping each other on the back for average.  Produced by Duncan Kenworthy and directed by Ben A Williams, we watched the  film with supposed complacency, that we would be amused by the hijinks of two gay male players buffing each other's ears. This film could have been so much more. It could have taken it out of the bedroom into the glare of the heated world of celebrity, the playing fields and flashing lights, they clearly kept the budget low and it showed.  Was there a necessity to do this or did the producers just not give enough money? Russell Tovey, who acted a footballer with no tattoos, was honestly not my scene and thank goodness for the looks, serenity and beauty of Arinze Kene. Come on now it is a low budget film made in three rooms with a script best suited to the world of theatre. There were no penis shots and kissing was performed in a steaming hot shower, where was the reality? The violent scene of a head being put into a bucket was the realest moment of the lot?  Bringing me to another point violence is acceptable in the world of film, but not romance, frontal nudity and kissing even?
Instead of entertaining all of us with this, I think people should be watching more Shakespeare and walking down Hollywood Boulevard catching up in real time, the swinging scene on Melrose, Los Angeles.

The New Dover Street Market, Amanda Eliasch

As a floating voter, not right or left, I was shocked this week that the safety net of society was again hit. How can David Cameron really think it sensible to bash the part of society that suffers the most, the pensioner and the disabled.  He made use of the subsidy for his son, did he not? Why not cut back on the subsidies that a refugee gets? Surely it is more sensible to keep the disabled or the pensioner  working with help than removing them and putting them into a home, at huge expenditure, where they fade and disappear unhappily from society? The Conservatives need to find new leaders immediately, with more compassion and more sincerity for those that are severely compromised. Another four years of wrecking the property market, pulling down Earls Court, not knowing the architecture of Howard Crane and building another Doha between Chelsea and City of London Bridges, not for the people in this country, The English, but for rich foreigners. I do not mind foreigners in this country but let's put England first? We are English, London is in England, and I am fed up with political correctness which, makes how you say something, so important. Let's look after Granny and the disabled. Paris is in France, Milan in Italy so please London is in England.

On a bit of good news, The New Dover Street Market is exceptional. Beautifully renovated and making another area more interesting. The Haymarket will now rock with panache which in turn should bring further interest to the theatre world. Congratulations. A pity Boris and co did not turn to the Architects who did this instead of Terry Farrell?

RIP LAURA JEFFREYS

Laura Jeffreys my lovely, quiet, friend will have her funeral on Tuesday 22nd March and it seriously feels surreal. Laura was so delightfully English. With a beautiful figure in a flowery dress or jeans, we would have been friends for 43 years, since the days when we used to ride, lying on the back of our ponies to The Tedworth Hunt and it's local Pony Club, to her painting and plastering our house at 31 Chester Square, when I was married. She died last week after a short illness with Motor Neurons disease, it was all so sudden, she followed her lovely son, who also died last year.  Laura  created her own unique world,  and she lived it. It is not the words I will miss but the silence. I used to say to Laura all the time "Did you hear what I said" 
She never once said I had outrageous taste, or that I was eccentric, she let me be the way I wanted and together we explored colour and life.  She used to love it ,the good thing about her was that she made no judgement at all. 
I love her family, Christopher, Charlie Jeffreys and Rose Prince, as if they were my own. Thank goodness last night I found the photographs  which are excellent, taken by the brilliant photographer Von Einsidel of 31 Chester Square, London SW1. Once the house of writer John Osbourne. I lived here from 1991-2008. The previous owner was Mary Gilliat his ex-wife, the interior designer, and it had chains from the 1960's and was designed then by famous Architect Sir Hugh Casson. I loved its  huge copper doors that came off the set of  Osbourne's play Luther at the Royal Court. Laura added to its eccentricity complimenting Casson's unusual ideas

Luckily Laura died surrounded by her wonderful family support   Indiana Marie Jeffreys, Sonamara Jeffreys, and many others, she had so wanted to live, but sadly life was quickly taken from her.

When Charlie rightly said I was vain and that I loved myself when I made a film about my life, she told him off teasingly telling him it was art, she was like that, she rang me afterwards to tell me. There was so much laughter when we were young I owe her a lot, she had the best dress sense when she was a teenager, great taste, she set the pattern of my life, Laura made me look at architecture a different way. I will always miss her after all who will paint a bedroom for me again, black pink and gold? The funny thing is that this week Rose Prince said to me "You know she also did the house you are living in now" That was a seriously camp affair before I modernised it. It belonged to Lord Cadogan and it had pillars when you entered the house, a gold and white bath in the centre of the room on a platform. Rag rolling everywhere. Laura, you will live on in some unchanged drawing room of London that recognises your beautiful work. Help I better rescue the bright blue dining room at 31 Chester Square.. damn it is probably mushroom by now. 

Laura was brave, she dealt with every calamity with calm and good grace. With great humour and pride. 

A message for Laura should you be able to see.
You have hopefully gone to a better place. I will be staying with Charlie and Rose a little longer we have a little more mischief to get up to  Love you forever in my heart and soul.

THE LINK TO THE GUN THE CAKE AND THE BUTTERFLY

Here is the link to my film which I have decided to be brave enough and release. I was going to hide it and let it collect dust, but it was a labour of love with all the ups and downs of a family member.
I loved making it. A documentary drama based on my life with music that I adore and working with my son Charles Eliasch whom I love.

The gun the cake and the butterfly is dramatic and swiftly moves,"Jarringly Frank"Indie Press said of it. It won the Lena Wertmuller prize set up for her husband at The Ischia Film and Music Festival and Inesa de la Roche from The Dark Theatre wrote this

It was a real pleasure watching the film "The Gun, The Cake and The Butterfly" by Amanda Jane Eliasch!
The whole complexity of life inside one woman's world is full of sparks and mystery...
She playfully guides you through her personal stories and deeply touching intimate thoughts... She transforms into many women and becomes a multilayered goddess who masters her own destiny.
Amanda gently undresses her soul in front of the audience, leaving herself transparent and exposed... She expressed her loneliness through all poetic and romantic journey, she gets hurt, she burns and then she rises like a Phoenix, humour heals every wound in her nostalgic and imaginative world... Amanda rules her creative and seductive Empire with her courage, confidence, intelligence and consciousness... It is her first film and it is an extraordinary achievement! I admire the way she have chosen to make her personal film in her own style, she knew exactly what she wanted and how to express her world cinematically as visual poetry, perhaps not polished the way Hollywood would perfect and sterilise any sort of reality which in most cases completely spoils the experience of real life, but Amanda's Eliasch film gives you the feeling of purity, honesty of life in cinema, leaving you deeply touched visually, wondering, questioning and mirroring your own feelings through her intimately fascinating and heart braking experiences... It's a magnificent 21st century liberated woman's film! The film maker Amanda Eliasch is a passionate artist, unstoppable visionary, she has no limitations within her confidence, creativity and endless imagination to manifest her own visions! There is so much to learn from her film and to be inspired by her honest and unique approach to making films!

Inesa De La Roche

I am now onto making my next film which is completely different and about The life of Egon Schiele and his love story with Wally Neuzil.
The Cardinal and The Nun.

WOMEN WITH PANACHE and INTELLIGENCE

I went to an opening of the garden at The Ivy in Kensington for International Woman's Day. I arrived only to have the photographers telling me that someone is gatecrashing using my name. They think my name holds some magical power and it will be open sesame for them. Apparently it is a blonde Russian woman.There are 20 gate crashers in London that regularly steal people's names to enter places that they can't get in.  I said to get a photograph of her and make a wall of shame.

In any case, with all the drama the garden is nice as is the one in Chelsea.

Women are continually in my thoughts, I love them. My twenty-four favourite women are as follows although there are another thirty that I love dearly too, these pop into my mind today.

1.  Countess Marina Cicogna, 

2.  Rushka Bergman Stylist to the stars

3.  Kay Saatchi Art collector

4.  Fizzy Barclay Ruler of the world

5.   Julia Laverne witch and guru

6.   Nainita Dessai Composer and I have done magic so she wins an Oscar soon,

7.   Inesa de la Roche, photographer

8.   Jessica Andrews, film producer

9.   Henriett Tunyogi, dancer

10.  Natalia Souza hairdresser and adopted daughter.

11.  Ana Lisa Arang my Houskeeper that I love and adore at the moment

12.  Carol Morely director

13.  Cate Blanchett, actress

14. Trinny, fashion guru ITV morning programme

15.  Mrs Alice in her Palace and her mother Serena. Alice Naylor Leyland

16. Sophie Dimitrova singer.

17. Angela Kalinowski hairdresser LA

18. Diane Von Furstenburg, clothes hostess

19. Tracey Emin artist

20. Jerry Hall, clever, model.

21. Emma O Byrne makeup artist

22. Franca Sozzani Director of Italian Vogue

23. Amanda Nevill BFI

24. Loree Rodkin Jeweller

These women's achievements speak for themselves.

BETWEEN A CHRISTMAS CRACKER AND AN EASTER EGG

Angus steak house which is on every corner of Leicester Square, nowadays decorated with chic red brick and dark grey paint, the hostesses wearing sharp copies of Prada last season, and the men willingly running around to my every wish. Chinese girls to the right and an English and Jamaican couple to the left.

What was I to eat?. My friend the brunette chose wisely a large plate of thick beef ribs, too much meat for me running across my plate, so I chose Chilli con Carne which arrived in a swing, like a cauldron of rouge gruel slightly luke warm. I had to return it I could taste a tin or two.
Everything beautifully presented, if not a little predictable.

As I left the abrupt waiter said "This is not a fast food restaurant" Everybody laughed behind his back. Get me a private jet out of here.

As for the film Spotlight directed by Tom McCarthy, which I had forgotten. I was questioned by the brunette if I had already seen this film, I could not remember until unfortunately the first scene when I realised I had seen it at its premiere at The Venice Film Festival. It is dangerous for me to go out in public, my friend said surprisingly "I thought you only did premieres?" How right he is. Saturday night in Leicester Square is a claustrophobic experience for any Londoner.
The film is full of interchangeable parts that anybody could have played. The sort of film that gets mixed up with loads of others hardly deserved an Oscar.  Despite talk of it, there were no explicit scenes  and just suggestions of unsavoury and  illegal behaviour. As I left the usherette said to another punter "Its won an oscar, I think" Every time it became a tiny bit interesting there was an edit. Fastly edited with filming in corridors lifts and courtrooms. There was no sex or murder just talk of it. Black Mass was the same with Johnny Depp. Why do script writers find courtrooms interesting? Has to be the wigs?
Luckily I had a second dinner, yes the Mayr Clinic is out of the window. I had a surprisingly delicious dinner in Savini at the Criterion beautifully cooked spaghetti and dishy men. It was the same price as Angus Steak House with a couple of drinks included. There we are.
This morning I have been dealing with the press who want to have my views on Helena Bonham Carter's dress sense, what can I say, I liked Jerry Hall yesterday in pale blue, a great choice of man, and a great choice in the wedding dress, designed by Vivienne Westwood. Last week she introduced me to her man in a wonderfully charming way, so happy and he too at Diane Von Furstenberg's party in Los Angeles.
Today I have a mid-life crisis and now have to deal being stuck between a Christmas Cracker and an Easter Egg. Help, it's Mother's Day and I may have been forgotten.

VANITY AND PRIDE AT THE OSCARS

As I was leaving The Vanity Fair Party, the petite redhead, Isla Fisher, came up to me and said "Do you think I am badly dressed? The fashion police say I look dreadful",  I said "Why you look good to me? What do I know, I am just the Fashion Editor of Genlux Magazine, a filmmaker and an artist. I put a warm doughnut into my mouth provided  by the Vanity Fair caterers, to stop hunger.  Her tall husband looked handsome and yet I did not recognise it was Sasha Baron Cohen, who as Bruno, was one of the funniest men on the planet. His wife, continued, "Don't the Fashion Police know I have to look after three children, what do the newspapers expect, I did the best I could do" She looked pretty to me in her green and white dress, but green is a "difficult" colour.  I was reminded of a quote from Downton Abbey.

A week ago before the Oscars it had been nil by mouth, I had a dress to fit into and a trip to the Mayr Clinic and Althausee, starvation. I saw so many stars this week behaving in normal ways that the mystique disappeared. I usually just like seeing them on the red carpet, posing, with beautifully applied makeup and hair. Girls nowadays seem to be two foot taller than in the 1980's and as I looked round the room the only woman who had curves of the 1950's was Lady Gaga, she wore a copy of the Marilyn dress and  had "Rita Heyworth" hair.
Scanning the room I thought, where were all the "It" girls from the year 2000, there were none there, and the only familiar faces were Sam Taylor-Wood, Lynn Wyatt, Vassi Chamberlain and makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury. It says a lot. The Vanity Fair party is bang up to date, there are few hangers on and you had better stay fit and photogenic.  Where were all the stars from twenty years ago? Everybody looked suddenly very young.

I am definitely not giving up. I still want to win an Oscar just like I wanted to be Head Girl.  After all, let's not lie,  it's fun being the sparkliest girl in the room. I enjoy being a showgirl.  I love Vanity, I love all the Deadly Sins, especially pride.

Elton Johns party was completely different from Vanity Fair and I was pleased to have been invited to both. Elton played his top ten numbers and everybody went wild. With a red theme throughout they raised six million for Aids. My chapeau is off to them.

Another party that was also organised to perfection was the party of Diane von Furstenberg's, I was greeted by 20 waiters in white uniforms, on the lawns of a perfect Beverly Hills Mansion. A picnic with a twist.

Strangely I also had two gay men say that they no longer wanted to be gay after ten or so years, asking if I would I seduce them?. This city is full of unexpected delights, but really, I would rather have a warm doughnut beautifully presented at the Vanity Fair party than get into a man's bed that was not sure of his sexuality.

As for the films,  I loved Danish Girl and I am disappointed.
I am  also fed up with talk of equality, there is no equality, there is always somebody better and prettier, more talented, that is life.  You can always be replaced, you will always have to try harder. However, it does not stop you having a go yourself.  It was fun seeing so many good looking talented creatures, it has, in my opinion, nothing to do with colour or race, just a word of advice, make use of every opportunity and nearly always say yes.

The best event of the week was seeing Ennio Morricone win an Oscar for Hateful8 and a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame, organised by Pascal Vicedomini, it was sparkling and I was happy that Mr Tarantino loved my glasses, what more does a girl want? An Oscar of course.

Pascal Vicedomini and Marina Cicogna

Victorian London Street Facing Demolition