The epithet pluralised above, in actuality, belonged to Gianni Agnelli — the late Fiat boss after whom this magazine is named. But, says Nick Foulkes, Agnelli was just one of the many potently charming, impeccably stylish jet-set-era gents who once turned the Côte d’Azur into an arena of amorous mastery.

Could the man after whom this magazine was named have a female equivalent? Originally published in Issue 40 of The Rake, Stuart Husband writes that Pamela Harriman, a woman of aristocratic stock, blazed a trail through the international scene of her era, enticing powerful men like moths to a particularly feisty flame.

Pamela Churchill Harriman

Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman. 20th century courtesan. Gr-gr- niece of the scandalous Jane Digby

Slim Keith was born Nancy Gross in the agricultural town of Salinas, but would one day be hailed as the original California girl and the inspiration for movie and novel characters. Growing up in Pacific Grove, she left Catholic high school early and headed out alone in a cute yellow roadster, to the California desert’s...

Pamela Churchill

A look at some of the most notorious female clashes from the last century.

Pamela Digney Churchill