Barbara Skelton (1916-1996), memoirist, novelist, socialite, femme fatale, and the model for Anthony Powell's character Pamela Flitton in A Dance to the Music of Time. 

From a diary entry for Christmas Day, 1952, in Tears Before Bedtime:

"It was a delicious sunny crisp morning and we enjoyed the drive to the Flemings [Ian and his wife Ann].  Arrived on time for once.  Everything very Christmassy... Everyone very subdued.  The Duchess of Westminster, wearing a black suit with gold flecks, was sitting alone in a far corner...They all appeared smug, confident and spiritless.  We listened to the Queen's speech.  Someone said how middle-class the Royal family were.  Cyril [Connolly] told me afterwards that it's the chic thing to say.  The Queen Mother, they said, was the most middle-class of the lot.  The Duchess of W put on a special voice when talking of the lower classes, implying riffraff or rabble."

There is something wonderfully compelling about Barbara Skelton's account of her "rackety highbrow life" (as Anthony Powell describes it) among the literary and political set in England in the 40s and 50s.  A slightly heady mix of champagne and squalor, of being chic and constantly being overdrawn at the bank which I suppose is, after all, what the bohemian life is all about.  Nowadays, however, it also strikes me as just a little sad.  Which I realize makes me terribly middle-class.  And old.  As you know, when I was younger it would have sounded like enormous fun.

Being young is key, though.  Being broke and having a fabulous time is part of the fun when you're young.  

As you will remember, of course, being clever and very very attractive at the same time also helps.