My payday treat this week was some magazines.  Having found that once I bought the magazines, I couldn't afford the gorgeous things in them, I entered into a self-imposed magazine moratorium a couple of years ago. (The general exception is airport purchase, but last time I flew I was replete with book.)

There's a famous line in Cold Comfort Farm (the book and the film) in which a communique from Flora, on said farm to her Aunt in the city ends "Send Vogue." 

I strolled back to work with an armful of glossy paper covered with ridiculously skinny airbrushed teenagers wearing stuff I could never afford. My untidy mind segued from Cold Comfort Farm to Dorothy Parker, a great humorist and poet, and along with Nancy Mitford one of the major influences on my twisted point of view. For Dorothy said "What fresh hell is this?": a quote I remember every working day.  

She also said "Brevity is the soul of lingerie"; and  "Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses". Although I have evidence which renders the latter untrue, it has a certain metrical amusement value. I know one individual who may cite the former as empirical truth.

Vogue tells me that the New Look is - well - new again. Again.So the return to vintage has worked it's way into the fashion 'mainstream' - it's back to vintage corsetry, beautiful dresses,the silhouettes of the 50's. If only I was an uber-rich skinny teenager who could afford airbrushing. 

I can afford "The Collected Dorothy Parker", a better investment, probably.