Saturday, August 25, 2012

Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor

Portrait of Wallis Simpson, 1936
Portrait of Wallis Simpson, 1936 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Who could possibly be more qualified to kick off our profiles of SRBs, who we heart, heart, heart, than the woman who said, “You can never be too rich, or too thin?”  We are talking about none other than Wallis Simpson, a poor girl from Pennsylvania – savvy enough to ditch her given name Bessie at some point in her youth – who would rise through the social ranks and, as if to back up her point, get a king to abdicate his throne for her, to become the Duchess of Windsor. 
Why we love her?
For starters, there’s the royal thing.  How cool is that?  Not fake, self-anointed, but genuine British royalty.  So her new rellies snubbed her.  So what?  That’s we’re talking about.  Her attitude, bitches… and take-no-prisoners ambition.
Even if she wasn’t a queen, she lived like a queen and was most definitely festooned with bling fit for a queen.  After her death, her collection of jewelry sold for a nifty $12.5 million.  Not bad for a few Cartier baubles.
With her unswervingly simple and immaculate take on fashion, she became a style icon who was constantly re-inventing her image.  Could Wallis be where Madge got her inspiration, since Her Madgeness was inspired enough to make a movie about the couple’s love affair. Titled W.E. – after Wallis and Edward, duh – the film won some awards, for Best Costumes.  We would hope so!
The Duchess was heard to have said, “I would rather shop than eat.”
In her earlier years in China, married to her first, minor-diplomat husband (Eddie was husband number three’s a charm), she was renowned for brilliant conversation and smart enough to learn the one singularly most important phrase in Mandarin, “Boy, pass me the champagne.” Cheers!
Tomes have been written about her and to this day, she’s still an enigma.
But the kicker?  After meeting her, Hitler said, “She would have made a great queen.”  Kudos indeed from one of the very baddest boys ever to go down in history.
We salute you Wallis Simpson.  You’ll always be a queen in our eyes.
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