Dressed To Excess
Photo Credit: Cleo Glyde
This was facilitated when my life as an Australian convent girl morphed into that of a couture catwalk model in Paris—where, due to my height, I was egged on to make big fashion statements. Being the belle of the ball was the entire point, so I assumed the position. My basic uniform was patent-leather go-go shorts bought in the Harajuku markets of Tokyo, and a Saint Laurent shell in alternating red-, green-, and white-sequined stripes, paired with Lacroix thigh-high pirate boots. That was day-wear. Parisians would stare back like gaping fish. I never put on a scarf when a boa would do, and as far as parties were concerned, I’d rather have given marrow than wear a flat shoe.
By nightfall, I’d go ape in evening gowns: a white Grecian column dress dangerously slashed up the leg; a silk number in a distinctively 1930s bias cut that draped modestly across the neckline but left a triangle of bare flesh at the back. It is the most come-hither thing I have ever owned.Then I really got bold. In Tangier, a girlfriend and I got wind of a party in Malcolm Forbes’s old palace. Having snapped up antique Moroccan wedding robes, we donned the camp finery like Renaissance potentates, pinned tribal jewelry to our turbans, and smeared carbon around our eyes. Then we swept past the astonished guards—without an invitation.
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