Good morning everyone,

I am in Margate! You might expect that this means a Fem Fri about the impressive women of Margate, but since the B&B I am staying in has a table purchased at auction from the Jackie Collins estate it’s actually about the Big Three women of bonkbusters.

We start of course with Jackie Collins, who lest we forget designed her house to look like Hockney’s “A Bigger Splash” because she couldn’t buy Hockney’s “A Bigger Splash”. I really admire people who, when denied something they want, think very closely about what it was they wanted about the thing, and go after that instead:

She had imagined not a house exactly, but a David Hockney swimming pool with house attached. “I’d always wanted the Hockney painting A Bigger Splash,” she explained. “But I could never get it. So I thought the best alternative was to have my own Hockney pool that looked like the painting.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/09/jackie-collins-hollywood-mansion

Here is my story about our next author. My father, at the dinner table, made some comment about class differences – I think it was about how married couples arrange themselves in cars by class. My stepmother asked him how he knew this stuff, and he said, calmly and blandly, “I expect I read it in a Jilly Cooper book, darling.” Have you ever seen what someone’s face looks like when they realise that you can never truly know someone, not even the person you married? She didn’t actually say the words “life is a rich tapestry” but that was the sentiment I understood.

failing to get into Oxford - in her interview they asked why she had written 'no time to finish' on her paper, and she told them that was a lie and that actually she hadn't been able to think of anything more to say

https://www.tatler.com/article/when-tatler-met-jilly-cooper-interview-2016

Okay, we’ve had the glamour, we’ve had the horses, now how about the clothes. Judith Krantz!

As an adult, Krantz followed trends the way that some people follow stock tickers, and in her later years (after writing novels, including a “Scruples” sequel, had made her wildly wealthy) she obsessively collected Chanel and Hermes.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-and-off-the-avenue/revisiting-judith-krantzs-scruples-a-novel-with-a-passion-for-clothes

Love,

Alex.