Miss Fleur Cowles - a true classic.

There's nothing more chic than having Cary Grant as best man at you wedding - and that's exactly what Fleur Cowles did. She was style personified, in a way we just don't see anymore.

She always wore well-tailored suits, loved large dark-rimmed glasses and an air of mystique. Her signature were large cocktail rings and fresh roses.

In the great traditions of reinvention Ms Cowles was an absolute artiste. She was named Florence Freidman when she was born. Her birth records said 1908, Ms Cowles (or should we call her Flo?) said 1917.

She started as a copywriter in a department store then in advertising in Boston. By 1931 she was writing a daily fashion column in New York which was considered witty, amusing and irreverent.

She launched the fashion magazine Flair in 1950. It was the first of the new wave of magazines for women - featuring art, travel, ideas, fiction, discussion. It failed after a year - losing millions.

By 1953 she was back at the top again - attending the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth as an official US ambassador and doing good works for famine relief - traveling the world meeting the leaders of the times.

In 1996 Cowles wrote her memoirs - She Made Friends And Kept Them. The English Daily Telegraph said of the book, "names were not so much dropped as hurled in a barrage."

Ms Cowles was a new age woman before we could come to terms with what that meant. A gifted art historian, tireless charity worker, stylish woman and terrible gossip - what more could you want? Rest in peace Fleur.