The Establishment was fascinated and appalled in equal measure. She referred to herself as “ambisextrous”, was known both for her striking beauty and dry wit and was the subject of a sex scandal involving school boys at Eton. Tallulah Bankhead, the American actress who lived in England during the 1920s and the subject of a seductive sketch by Beaton in the show, was both promiscuous and bisexual. Homosexuality was common, according to Jessica Mitford who said: “Nearly every English boy I knew had a terrific exposure to homosexuality. Treasure hunts, jazz parties, drug consumption (both cocaine and morphia were popular, with one socialite, Alice Gwynne carrying a silver syringe to inject) and romances of every description flourished while the older generation despaired of their children’s capricious escapades and unrestrained abandon. Waugh said of his contemporaries: “They were totally unlike the various, publicised groups of modern youth, being mostly of good family and education and sharp intelligence, but they were equally anarchic and short-lived.” Beaton claimed to have been bullied by Waugh at school and there was little love between them. The book explored the social bedlam of the era which was marked by a fusion of sex, snobbery and sybarism. Such behaviour, indulged in by Beaton and his set was lampooned by Evelyn Waugh in his novel Vile Bodies. Elizabeth Ponsonby, the daughter of a baron and a leader of the Bright Young Things, outraged society by throwing parties where guests drank alcohol from bottles while in their pyjamas and dancing to jazz, or hosting a mock wedding behaviour that was considered scandalously degenerate by the public. Their favourite fashions, increasingly lavish parties and the friendships, rivalries, romances and feuds that consumed them were fodder for gossip journalist such as Charles Graves (brother of Rupert) who vividly reported their high jinks in nightclubs like Quaglinos, the Embassy Club, Ciro’s, the Café de Paris and the Kit Kat. Many of these characters feature in the exhibition and were captured in Beaton’s first book published in 1930, The Book of Beauty.īeaton’s subjects were a glamorous, fast set who led a dazzling sometimes decadent social life between the first World War and the second World War. He was ushered into increasingly rarefied circles as the decade progressed, peopled by socialites Edwina Mountbatten and Diana Cooper, actress Anna May Wong, set and costume designer Oliver Messel, Stephen Tennant, various Maharanis, the Mitford sisters, Loelia Duchess of Westminster, John Betjeman, Oliver Messel and the Queen. Once taken up by the famous Sitwell siblings (Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell) from 1926 on Beaton’s doorbell “never ceased to ring”. The show charts Beaton’s transformation from middle-class suburban schoolboy to glittering society figure and the unrivalled star of Vogue (he contributed to the title for 50 years). He won three Oscars for costume and art direction for the film of My Fair Lady (1965) and for Gigi (1958).

Beaton was also a talented and acclaimed designer for film and stage, including his striking costumes for the stage musical of My Fair Lady (1956).

His early studio portraits of ethereal debutantes and celebrities involved elaborate theatrical backdrops, and shaped the image of the Bright Young Things in popular culture. These arresting and artfully contrived images according to Muir, bring “to life a deliriously eccentric, glamorous and creative era of British cultural life, combining High Society and the avant-garde, artists and writers, socialites and partygoers” in a display of glamour, celebrity, wealth and creativity.Ĭecil Beaton, a prolific polymath who chronicled fashion and society, was amongst the leading British photographers of the 20th century. Beaton’s photographs of the young, glamorous and hedonistic socialites who indulged in every excess against a luxurious backdrop in the two decades between the world wars are still incredibly potent, imaginative and alluring. The show which features 170 works of photography, illustration and portraiture was curated by Robert Muir, a contributing editor to Vogue. The Bright Young Things of the 1920s as portrayed by Cecil Beaton are the inspiration for a major exhibition at the UK’s National Portrait Gallery in June this year.

1920s socialite