La Femme, La Gun, La Petit Kitten

How things have changed: some 50 years ago, this item, (quoted in an essay by S J Perelman) appeared in 'Glamour' magazine as a set of suggestions by which a young lady could brighten up her apartment during winter.

1. Invest in eight small white pots of ivy to range on your window-sills. 2. Paint a gaily fringed rug on a wooden floor. 3. Rent an original picture from a painting rental library (Between $2 and $35 will let you live with a masterpiece for two months.) 4. Put a bowl of glittering goldfish on your coffee-table. 5. Partition a room with fish-net running on a ceiling track. 6. Get a kitten. 7. Cover your loose cushions with polka-dot cotton - perhaps white dots on black, black dots on white - variously sized and spaced. 8. Get a mobile to grace your room with motion - or better, make one yourself. 9. Slip cover your couch in dark denim - navy, brown, or charcoal, maybe - depending on your colour scheme. 10. If your living-room walls are plain - on a Sunday, wallpaper just one wall. 11. Give houseroom to a tree in a big wooden tub. 12. Paste golden notary seals in an all-over design on your white window shades. 13. Wallpaper the insides of your cabinets and drawers with a flower print. 14. Have a favourite drawing photostated up as big as they'll make it; then hang it on your wall. 15. Forget polishing for ever and spray all your metal surfaces with a new plastic preservative. 16. Buy a new shower curtain - and make it SILLY. 17. Make a new table-cloth out of irresistible cotton yard goods. 18. Draw outline pictures of your kitchen utensils on the wall right where each should hang. 19. Dye your mother's white damask table-cloths in brilliant shades. If they're huge, cut the surplus up into squares and hem them for napkins. 20. Put silk fringe along the bottoms of window shades. 21. Get yards of fake leopard skin to throw over your studio couch. 22. Make a cork bulletin board. 23. Cover your lampshades in wallpaper to match your papered walls. 24. Find some cutlery boxes of keep your jewellery lucid in the drawers. 25. Invest in flowered china or glass door-knobs.

For the modern girl, it seems, guns are more the thing:

" Hi, I'm Joan Collins, and when I rob the occasional drug store, I use Lady's Weapons by Antonio Reillo". It has always been said that if women ran the world, there would be no violence or war. Well, there may be violence, but it would be much prettier if these hot little weapons were used. From Leopard print guns to heart lined hand grenades, this retro line from Antonio Riello makes shooting someone a classy affair. As part of an exhibition staged in 1988, Reillo created these weapons and named them after key women in his life . From Svetlana to Nathalie, these pieces are created from the heart. Watch for Paris Hilton to be sporting one of these elite accessories should she sink low enough to hold up the local Beverly Hills 7-11. We don't think it'll be much longer.

Some of Antonio Reillo's guns:

I wouldn't be surprised if the discerning modern gangstress would blanch at the thought of combining those pink guns with the fake-leopard print. But interestingly, there is some possibility of combing old ways and new ways here. For instance, the gun-owning gangstress could wallpaper the axe in floral print - or line the edges of her guns with silk - or slip cover her holster's in dark denim - or draw outlines of her weapons on the kitchen wall right next to where each should hang - or given her kitten a heart-lined hand grenade to play with - or take the pink gun and use the bowl of glittering goldfish for ...

(Hat tip to - who else? - Caz)