“What do you hope to acquire when you bid at a prestigious evening auction at Sotheby’s? A bundle of things: a painting of course, but hopefully also a new dimension to how people see you. As Robert Lacey described it in his book about Sotheby’s, you are bidding for class, for a validation of your taste.”
Kyle Thomas Hemingway: The ephemera edit
An ongoing digital archive of 1,399 items (and counting) proving that I read, I saw, and I actually paid attention.
Category is
Book
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“When the Marchese de Caracciolo wrote to the King of Naples that in England he had discovered a country of ‘22 religions and two sauces,’ these were not words of praise.”
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“…from her earliest days at Versailles, Marie Antoinette staged a revolt against entrenched court etiquette by turning her clothes and other accoutrements into defiant expressions of autonomy and prestige…it is my belief that she identified fashion as a key weapon in her struggle for personal prestige, authority, and sometimes mere survival.”
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“While on the subject of men, a brief, loud hurrah for homosexuals and their incredible eye for line, proportion, detail, and style. As a Rome magazine writer said: ‘Every woman over thirty needs a homosexual in her life.’ She needs someone who is genuinely interested in making her look better, perhaps because it is his business. Homosexuals, particularly those in the beauty and fashion field, are both expert and generous with their knowledge.”
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“‘Every member of the audience,’ marvelled one visitor, ‘had a listening-tube, hung on the back of the seat in front, with a pair of little knobs that you placed in your ears; at the other end of the listening-tube a phonograph played a text synchronized with the pictures.’”
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“Paris is narcotic for a man alone, a never-ending labyrinth where the anxiety of freedom is relieved.”
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“I have no idea what’s awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”
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“The queens took the lead in the Stonewall Riots. They walked around in semi-drag with teased hair and false eyelashes on and they didn’t give a shit what anybody thought about them. What did they have to lose? Absolutely fucking nothing.”
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“Cole discovered that candy vendors sold more than sweets. They were also the purveyors of those spicy, naughty books that have always been the forbidden fruit of young people. Cole soon made a point of stocking up on these books.”
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“In the way he dressed, fancy-dress parties and leopard-skin togas aside, Rex was markedly and increasingly conservative in comparison to his dandyish friends. Stephen might sprinkle his hair with gold dust, rouge his cheeks, smear Vaseline on his eyelids, paint his lips, don earrings and mist himself with scents from Worth and Molyneux, but for the most part (despite his brief flirtation with plus fours) Rex dressed ‘unostentatiously’ in corduroy trousers or well-cut suits.”
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“The gleaming low white villa was set into the rocks behind it, as though it belonged there, and guests who glanced out of the windows or stepped onto the private balcony of their bedroom would get the impression that it was almost hanging over the blue sea. The swimming pool, considered the best on the Riviera, was housed in a basin blasted out of the rocks and featured a water-chute so that bathers could slide down into the sea below and swim to a raft tethered just offshore. The huge terrace between the house and the pool was the center for most of the entertainment, and at each end a curved stone staircase descended to the pool.”
