Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: "Galli-Curci, Flagstad, and Myself"

"Camp rests on innocence. That means Camp discloses 

innocence, but also, when it can, corrupts it." 

- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

It struck me suddenly as odd that we'd gotten this far into this apparently endless series without ever addressing some of the most basic ur-texts, as it were, of the Camp canon.

Diva Paraphernalia: Necessary Accessories

Another Fabulon inspiration: lorgnettes!

As wielded by a startling variety of great ladies:

Miss Callas, staring down an upstart who might actually be trying to give her direction;

Couturière Valentina, either trying to suss out the details of a somewhat-too-distant hemline or checking what mischief her husband is getting up to with Miss Garbo;

And last, but never least, the vivacious Miss Beatrice Lillie, deploying for comic effect what actually might be a rather useful thing: the lorgnette-six shooter.

Along with reticules, dress clips, and lipstick-covers, lorgnettes are among the most critically threatened entries on the Endangered Accessories List. Won't you do what you can to bring them back?