Apfel stars, along with Anna Wintour, as a New York grande dame in the documentary Bill Cunningham New York, having been a regular in Cunningham's photos for several decades, and is set to be the subject of her own documentary by Grey Gardens film-maker Albert Maysles.
Hadid, a dame of the British Empire, became the first female and first Muslim to win the most prestigious Pritzker Prize in architecture in 2004.
Von Furstenberg's life story is a biopic waiting to happen: the self-made millionaire who married into (and then divorced from) German royalty, partied with Andy Warhol at Studio 54, lost her fortune and won it again, got namechecked in a Dolly Parton song (Working Girl) and is still, at 66, having a high old time as a grand dame of New York.
The modest sound of a damehood, however – along with the righteous spectacle of a gender imbalance being corrected – still ensures that the average new dame will find the world beaming right back at this purported triumph for equality/the working classes/her grandchildren.
Dame of what?" Given "what" appeared to be the British empire, Lessing felt she should excuse herself: "When young I did my best to undo that bit of the British Empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia".
Its more impressive beneficiaries – currently the Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, and Dame Marina Warner – return the compliment, by lending reputational lustre to official partiality and caprice.
De Souza had by now moved from Ormiston Victory school to be chief executive of the Inspiration Trust, had been made a dame and was a part-time Ofsted inspector, lauded by former education secretary Michael Gove, who claimed his ideal education policy would be to clone De Souza "23,000 times".
Or, to be formal, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire – a body that still exists in the world of national honours, along with that Downtonesque speciality item, the Royal Victorian Order, whose various classes scientifically accord with the royal household's higher and lower ranks.
"I am beyond thrilled and beyond excited," says new dame, Joan Collins.
By chance, thanks to official determination to honour her fellow lawyer, fellow sex inquiry drop-out, and now, fellow dame, Fiona Woolf, the programme's instant dame-facility could not have been more timely.
Best actress is Julianne Moore for Maps to the Stars A giant whoop in among the tappity-tap-tapping press as Julianne Moore takes the best actress prize for her grand-standing performance as a crazed Hollywood dame in David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars.
