Hollywood's Sapphic Sewing Circle & Lesbian Salons
Bring back sapphic sewing circles. Swiping, utterly, sucks! Tipsily, I've registered on dating sites but next day, lost my mojo on interacting. Bring me back to sipping fizz with my fab sewing circle pose in Soho gay bars, First Out... queer indie clubbing at the Ghetto & Popstars and, being introduced to friends of my Soho sewing circle ...
Though relieved to be born in this time - WOW, I would have L.O.V.E.D to have hung out in Natalie Barney's salon and The Hollywood Sewing Circle (yet, avoiding any in-house girlfriend dramas - me, a good girl)
Natalie Barney's Tres Cool Parisian Salon
Openly Out, Natalie Barney (a wealthy American poet and writer) ran a weekly "salon" from her home in 20 rue Jacob, Paris, where many of the coolest ever 20c artists, intellectuals and writers hung out in tres chic Paris, from the early 1900s until the late 1960s and, much sapphic fun was enjoyed! Over the years, Natalie Barney hosted hundreds of fabulous guests including legendary sapphic
......
Colette, Gertrude Stein, Isadora Duncan... as well as artists Auguste Rodin, poet T.S. Eliot, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, and arts patron Peggy Guggenheim. Dance performances, literary readings, musical concerts and plays were held there. It was also a crucial environment where queers could hang out. Perhaps this inspired my fav Pet Shop Boys video / track "Being Boring" and their lyric "She was never being boring, as she was never bored" (a quote from Zelda Fitzgerald)?
The Hollywood Sewing Circle
There is contention as to who came up with the term "The Hollywood sewing circle". Alla Nazimova (a Russian-American actress) is credited as coming up with term "The Sewing Circle" as a discreet code for lesbian or bisexual actresses. Thereafter, Marlene Dietrich secretly called her group of Hollywood lesbian and bi women star friends, her "Sewing Circle". As documented by Axel Madsen in his book The Sewing Circle (1996), this included a surprising array of key and popular Hollywood stars: Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead, Katherine Cornell, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford ... Others whose secret lives were divulged, include: Maude Adams, Lynn Fontanne, Myrna Loy, Edith Head, Janet Gaynor, Jill Esmond, Elsa Lanchester, Isadora Duncan, Laurette Taylor, Libby Holman, Marjorie Main, Agnes Moorehead, and Dame Judith Anderson. They met at one another's Hollywood houses for lunch, conversation and... aye! Mercedes de Acosta (a playwright...) seems to have struck it very lucky there.
A Special Shout Out In My Dream Sewing Circle
In my dream Sewing Circle, I would so love ... Annie Leibovitz to be there. When Annie Leibovitz was at her exhibition opening during an Edinburgh International Festival, she autographed a beautiful postcard of her slick pic of Olympic Diver, Greg Louganis, for me! Of course, I was too tongue-tied to say how awesome I thought her work was (I had no idea she was cake!). Hurrah, she spelt my name wrong (it is Germanised) so she wrote a v sweet and treasured, "sorry" amendment. Blown-up, it is proudly displayed in my flat. Thank you Annie Leibovitz - you so rock!
Inès de La Fressange
Hetty (straight) card - for me: uber tres chic, tres cool.
French Icon: 1957
Guinevere Turner
To... hug her for tipping me ... over, the sappphic edge.
Actress: 1969
Lily Tomlin
To... encourage me to be a sassy / witty but not cruel, beecharmer.
Actress: 1939
