PRESS UPDATE : THE TELEGRAPH LIFESTYLE .. OCTOBER 13TH 2016 ..

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Jewels, turbans: inside the charity shop where you can try Joan Collins's wardrobe on for size.

 

Annabel Venning gets to grips with Collins's

Back in 1986 when I was a gawky teenager, my favoured look – and that of my friends – was a drab combination of baggy jeans, cardigans that came down to the knees and clumpy Doc Marten boots.
A 'going-out’ outfit would be pretty much the same, with the addition of frosted pink lipstick and heavily back combed hair. Not that there were many places to go out, when you boarded at an all-girls school in Dorset - it was hardly worth putting your lippy on for a trip to the Spar.
But on Friday nights, a shot of glamour beamed its way into our boarding house. Fifty of us crowded round the one, tiny television, sitting cross legged on the floor, for our weekly visit from another world of big money, big hair and big shoulders: Dynasty.

 

The author tries a turban and kaftan combo Credit: Christopher Ple

The scheming and seductions, the betrayals and tragedies, the glorious Colorado backdrops and the mega-mansions that gleamed with marble and gold: all these we thirstily lapped up.
But the star of the show, the real reason why we all staked our claim to the pole position in front of the telly, was of course Alexis Carrington, the gloriously bitchy femme fatale, played by Britain’s most glamorous export, Joan Collins.
Her sequinned gowns, shoulder pads the size of breeze blocks, OTT jewellery, killer heels, crimson lips and nails were the perfect antidote to our boring wardrobes and humdrum lives. Forget the gritty grey realism of Eastenders, it was escapism we wanted and Joan - alluring, dazzling, jewel-laden Joan - provided it in (ice) buckets.
  
The author tries a turban and kaftan combo Credit: Christopher Pledger 
 It was a sad day when Alexis left our screens in 1989; Friday nights were never the same, but Joan herself glittered on.

Now in her eighties, undimmed by the decades, she still wears miniskirts and plunging necklines, her hair is permanently coiffed in the luxuriant waves she adopted post-Dynasty, and her lips remain resolutely red.
She has written books giving style advice and last year brought out her own clothing label, Jackie Palmer. Dress for your body, not your age, is her mantra.
But as every woman knows, now and then a wardrobe audit is required, and where better to send your cast-offs than a charity shop?
Dame Joan is a patron of Shooting Star Chase, a Surrey children’s hospice charity that cares for children and young people with life-limiting conditions. She often visits the two hospices and it was in recognition of this support that she was made a dame in 2014.

So it was natural that their Guildford shop should be the lucky recipient of her latest clearout: more than 150 items, from Manolo Blahnik shoes to a John Galliano ensemble and colourful vintage kaftans and turbans galore.

“She’s been incredibly generous,” says Ruth Shaw, the charity’s retail manager. “She’s got a heart of gold.”
I couldn't resist visiting the shop this week to view the Joan Collins collection for myself - and to slip into Alexis’s shoes for a moment or two. The entire shop window is devoted to Joan’s donations and there is a buzz of excitement as customers peruse the silky camisoles, kaftans, jewellery and jackets filling the rails.
Business has been brisk, Denise Stenning, the shop manager, tells me. They have been fielding enquiries from fans as far-flung as Miami and shipped £400 worth of clothes to Germany, while one diehard Dynasty fan travelled the 100 miles from Dorset to splurge £700 on items once worn by their icon.
Some shoppers maintain the items are presents for their mothers; one man came in and bought jewellery for his wife to wear to Joan’s one-woman show, which has just finished its run across the country.
“It’s not often you get a chance to buy something that a real, genuine Hollywood superstar has worn,” points out Denise. “And there is a huge range , from designer clothes to more down-to-earth items.”

Some of the items in store were worn by Collins during her time on Dynasty

I spy several tops from Zara - who knew Dame Joan hit the High Street? - and skirts from her own Jackie Palmer label, with prices ranging from £10 to £350. There is even a nightdress, though the accompanying dressing gown has already gone. 

Some of the items are being saved for a silent auction that ends tomorrow, for which the shop has been taking telephone bids from around the world. Among the auction items are those Manolo Blahnik shoes, an LK Bennett signed by Joan, a Chanel handbag with a reserve of £500 (apparently, Chanel have yet to confirm it’s genuine, but I can’t imagine La Collins having a fake), an Alexander McQueen bracelet and a Tiffany necklace.
The charity hopes to raise £10,000 in total from her donations, on top of the £2000 raised last month when a gown she wore as Alexis was sold at auction.
My eye is caught by a large pair of glitzy clip-on earrings that are also in the auction with a £350 reserve price. Joan wore them as Alexis – there is an accompanying photo to prove it.

Some of Joan Collins's trademark turbans are on sale at the Guildford shop Credit: Christopher Pledger

I try these on with a silky blue and pink kaftan (£125) and one of Collins's trademark turbans, together with some white wedges, and am transported briefly away from a grey October day in Guilford to sunny St Tropez. I can imagine Joan wearing this poolside and purring to Percy, her fifth husband, three decades her junior, to "be a darling" and fix her another cocktail.
Though only 43 myself, I’m not brave enough to don the black swimming costume or tropical print bikini top that once enveloped an embonpoint impressive enough to have enraptured Warren Beatty, among her other conquests.
My eye is caught by a pretty, floaty cream chiffon top with embroidered butterflies (£60), a zebra print skirt from Joan’s own label (£100) and a turquoise shirt-come-jacket (£50). However, it’s not really modern Joan, Queen of the Cougars, that I want to channel, but Eighties, Alexis-era Joan. So I pounce upon a Dynasty-style black jacket with silver thread (£150) and a satin pencil skirt with a zip up the back split (£60) and team it with the Manolos.
For a moment or two I’m back in the Eighties: when Joan Collins was not a national treasure or grand dame, but a scheming, sultry femme fatale who convinced us that we too could smash the glass ceiling – and maybe seduce a hunky oil man or two – if only our shoulder pads were sharp enough.
To bid in the silent auction, which ends at 4pm on Saturday, telephone: 01483 304 696 www.shootingstarchase.org.uk