Princess Style: Margaret

    

Photo: Cecil Beaton

Little Augury has invited me to name ten eternal beauties. I plumbed the depths of originality and included Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly , I couldn't help it. But then, casting around for some that may not be on other people's list in L A's upcoming post, I remembered Princess Margaret whose allure was displaced in the popular imagination by the slightly vacuous beauty of Princess Diana.

Photo: Cecil Beaton

Margaret, who died in 2002, was the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth as most will know. She went from classic English rose to sophisticated beauty when she married society photographer and all-round creative, Anthony Armstrong Jones (Lord Snowdon as he became). Earlier she had fallen in love with Group Captain Peter Townsend but was not allowed to marry him. A small matter of his earlier divorce. This brought her the sympathy of the nation and together with her later divorce from Snowdon followed by her 'affair' (whatever that was) with the young Roddy Llewellyn, she was generally perceived to be a lonely and unhappy woman. In the shadow of her elder sister, she never really carved out an identity of her own and yes, there was whiff of scandal around her.

Photo: unknown

 I don't think she was the sad case she was made out to be at all. She had the social life of a diva and was well-known for keeping her courtiers and friends up late into the night carousing. A patron of the arts, in particular the ballet, she was highly intelligent. It was possibly the saddest aspect of her life that she never fulfilled that potential. She could behave like a diva: let her hair down, seduce her companions into thinking she was after all quite normal and then suddenly remind them of her status. But I would imagine that on a good day she was, in the words of poet Ernest Dowson, wild and sweet and witty. Amongst Lord Snowdon's artistic circle of friends she flirted with bohemia. Being friends with the genius of comedy, actor Peter Sellers, there is a very jolly home movie of the princess (presumably directed by him) doing a comic routine herself. And that was after she was filmed doing the washing up.

Photo: Lord Snowdon (I hope!)

With a flawless complexion and eyes like sapphires, Pincess Margaret was more stylish than the Queen. Whereas Elizabeth has kept virtually the same hairstyle all her life, Margaret's continually evolved. My favourite was a gamine cut with a fringe, but generally it was long and flamboyantly styled. Her wardrobe was often romantic, sometimes a little vulgar, occasionally stuffy but generally she exuded glamour. I can't get enough of looking at her as a younger woman. It was terribly sad when, at the end of her life, she was cast down by a stroke and an unfortunate accident where her feet were scalded in the bath. She was, finally, frail and wheelchair bound. Let's not go there.

Photo: Norman Parkinson [?] At her home in Mustique (That' John Lewis fabric there!)




This faintly cheesy You-tube clip brings together static images of some gorgeous moments of her life and some of the sadder ones too. Do enjoy it. (And click x to get rid of the advert)