Joan Collins

Joan Collins’s diary: Why I gave up on Ascot – and where I go instead

Plus: Paparazzi, football and a plane struck by lightning

The Spectator Magazine Summer Party at Their office in Old Queen Street Westminster London Joan Collins and Percy Gibson [Alan Davidson/The Picture Library Ltd] 
issue 12 July 2014

Can there be anything more perfect than early July in London, when the sun is shining, the sky a cloudless azure and the temperature hovers in the mid-seventies? Sorry, I still do Fahrenheit. It’s party time everywhere, with all the annual events happening, but I don’t do Ascot any more, too waggish, or Henley, too wet, or Wimbledon, too warm. The former has changed radically over the last 20 years, when I was fiercely censured for borrowing another woman’s Royal Enclosure badge, on a dare that no one would recognise me. Now these high jinks would be deemed innocent in comparison to the behaviour that goes on: people snogging, passing out and throwing up in public hardly raise an eyebrow. Everyone was super-elegant then, most women wearing gorgeous hats and outfits. But sadly dressing up seems out of fashion today, which I sorely miss as I enjoy the fun of wearing a fabulous outfit, looking good and getting compliments.

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