High life | 12 January 2017

There are Dames and there are dames. Dame Vivien, an old friend, became one for her philanthropy. Dame Edna, the creation of yet another friend, was given a damehood for her middle-class morality and upper-class pretensions. And now we have Dame Anna of Vogue, honoured for affecting a faux-aristocratic grandeur to the peasants of the fashion world.

There is only one thing to say, and that’s ‘Gimme a break.’ The last of the Dambusters crew members is refused a knighthood, Nigel Farage ditto, yet a flatulent embarrassment like Victoria Beckham is rewarded for preening and sneering. As the mayor of Hiroshima was said to have asked on that awful August day in 1945, ‘What the fuck was that?’

Farage restored Britain’s sovereignty, and George ‘Johnny’ Johnson is the last airman of Dambuster fame alive, yet two increasingly simian-looking women are made dames for services to cheap celebrity and very ugly fashion. Rewarding celebrities should be a no-no. Honours should go to those who work without hope of huge salaries or prizes.

Let’s face it. Fashion is an industry that is as frivolous as it is phoney, an escape mechanism for the rich and wannabees and for those who really hate women. Have you seen what designers — who are mostly gay — create in order to make women look ridiculous? Here’s a fashion writer, one Vanessa Friedman, quoting an Italian fashion editor who has just passed away: ‘Not only should fashion have a place at the political table, it also deserves one.’ Nurse, help! (Now look here, Vladimir, just lay off the Dior unless you want Chanel down your throat.)

And then she comes out with: ‘Fashion isn’t really about clothes, it’s about life!’ Nurse, please, this woman really needs help.