“The trouble with most English women is that they dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous life and do not want to attract attention” – Dame Edith Sitwell (Photographed by Sir Cecil Beaton)

Bertrand Russell – Face to Face Interview with Dame Edith Sitwell, 1959. From the BBC archives.
Dame Edith Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was an English socialite and poet who first gained fame for her stylistic artifices but who emerged during World War II as a poet of emotional depth and profoundly human concerns. She was equally famed for her formidable personality, Elizabethan dress, and eccentric opinions.