.jpg)
"Glamour is what makes a man ask for your telephone number and a woman as for the name of your dressmaker", said Lilly Daché, New York Milliner, 1950s.
Glamour is about creating a fantasy and winning over the admiration of others. Many people can look good, but everyone can be adored, plus glamour is not only about the appearances but also about personality and attitude.
When we talk about glamour, one celebrity comes to mind in a split of a second - Marilyn Monroe. The iconic star from the 1950s could switch it on and off with a smile. It didn't matter what she was wearing. She could glow with a simple pose.
In fact, one day the glamorous idol was with friend Susan Strasberg in a New York street wearing casual clothes and wearing no make-up. People around her ignored her until she whispered to Strasberg, ‘Watch this'. Her body language changed, her hips swiveled, and heads started to turn. In a matter of seconds, crowds were asking for her autograph.
In her own words, "Beauty and femininity are ageless and can't be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won't like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it's based on femininity."
A true glamorpuss has this kind of female sorcery with the power to enchant everyone around. As Caroline Cox states in her book, "How to be Adored", "A woman of glamour has a magnetism few men can resist, yet all of us can attain it - even those without classically natural beauty... This is because glamour is about artifice, as clearly displayed in the world's origins, grammarye, an ancient term for necromancy - the harnessing of supernatural forces.
"The original belief was that magic had the power to elevate mundane reality - through the right combination of spells, the eye could be fooled into thinking that what it was seeing was something spectacular. In the early Twentieth century, when glamour began to be used to describe a woman's physical presence".
Essentially, the artifice of make-up, hair design and all the frills and furbelows of fashion played the most significant part in making a woman look fabulous.
As Lady Gaga said: "I don't think I could live without hair, make-up and styling, let alone be the performer I am. I am a glamour girl through and through. I believe in the glamorous life and I live one."
Lucky for us, Marilyn Monroe shared her secrets with the rest of the world. The first rule is to be yourself; second: "glamour is not all low-cut gowns and the slinky look. Blue jeans can still make you look attractive"; you need to believe you are attractive first so others can believe it too; be happy with being a woman and men will follow; and when in comes to deciding how to dress, trust your own instincts.