Anna van Praagh
(Picture: Matt Writtle)While we civilians march into our inter-galactically grim cost of living a nightmare existence blinking in disbelief at the horror of it all while clutching ‘blackout boxes’, over on planet celebrity Cara Delevingne has become a “sexual wellness” entrepreneur. The model is the co-owner and creative adviser of Lora DiCarlo, which has developed “pleasure products” with the engineering and robotics lab of Oregon State University. To further explore her subject matter she will appear in a documentary by the US streaming giant Hulu next month.
I mean, who doesn’t even know that sexual wellness is the new mindfulness? And yes, while almost certainly yet another thing for us ordinaries to feel intimidated by and inadequate over, it’s big business and big money. The global sexual devices market is worth £16 billion and is forecast to grow seven per cent each year until 2026. Go, Cara.
Queen Gwynnie, as ever, is way ahead of the curve on this (see her hilariously named sex toys on Goop — “air pulsing sex toy for penis owners”, anyone?). Meanwhile, Kate Moss has launched her wellness brand Cosmoss. Rihanna is now worth an estimated $1.4 billion, according to Forbes, in large part thanks to her Fenty beauty line, and while you were sitting around in your PJs moaning about bog roll acquisition in the pandemic, Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company sold for $900m to a media company backed by Blackstone. Kylie Minogue is no longer just a cute Aussie bombshell but a seriously wealthy wine mogul. And so it goes on.
A vibe shift is here with women and celebrity — and I am here for it.
Last week the exquisitely patronising Meghan Markle told the world in her Archetypes podcast with Paris Hilton, called Breaking Down the Bimbo, that she regretted performing on TV show Deal or No Deal because the game show treated the women like bimbos.
Markle appeared on the show in 2006, and while she said she was “grateful” for the job when she was 25, she felt she was only valued for her looks.
“I would end up leaving with this pit in my stomach, knowing I was so much more than what was being objectified on the stage,” she said. Well, I can’t say I agree with everything Meghan says, but did she really deserve to be globally eviscerated for saying something so incredibly sensible and obvious?
Why should an intelligent university-educated woman pretend she felt proud of herself when working as a “briefcase model” who had to have her bra padded out before she was allowed on stage, and, more pertinently, would a man be expected to be proud of doing that?
The fact is that being a beautiful high-profile woman has historically meant being objectified while men make the real profits from your work. How wonderful to see so many successful women in the entertainment industry moving the dial and beating men at what for too long has been only their game.
In other news...
Society bible Tatler has done the unthinkable and killed off the Sloane Ranger. In its latest edition it has revamped its Little Black Book of society’s most eligible men and women to feature fewer poshos and more sports and TV stars. Dear oh dear.
Peter York and Ann Barr’s 1982 The Sloane Ranger’s Handbook identified the Sloane species, as if zoologists had spotted a rare amphibian on King’s Road and documented it. I think it was meant to be comic fiction but it may as well have been the Bible in my childhood home, as was total reverence of the high priestess of Sloane Rangerdom, Princess Diana, resplendent in her Sloane garb of sheep jumpers and pie crust shirts (I must confess I had my own stripy Benetton version). Well of course the world has evolved, leaving little room for this decadent, rather ridiculous tribe.
RIP Sloanes and a happier, more carefree cancellation-free age.
