Imelda Marcos: The first bitch of power abuse

While Filipinos languished in poverty, the President's wife amassed a lavish wardrobe. Now, as Kate Thomas reports, she is launching her own jewellery range.

I think this means she puts her name to something that somebody else has designed then sits back and waits for the cash to roll in.

Imelda Marcos's ostentatious displays of wealth still haunt the Philippines. They remember her $5m shopping tour to New York in 1983, the time she ordered a private jet to pick up Australian white sand for the opening of a new beach resort; and that final fairytale moment, when Filipinos raided her palace wardrobe after she and her dictator husband fled to Hawaii, to find bullet-proof bras, buckets of perfume and about 3,000 pairs of shoes.

So perhaps any profit she makes should be channeled back into the Philippines? Frankly I think it a disgrace that anybody should want to finance a venture like this and that she is allowed to live in a lavish style while most people in the Philippines live in poverty.

There can't be many women in the world privileged enough to have their name - and even position - printed on the inside of their footwear. Does Imelda Marcos do this to stop people stealing them? She need not bother because only very few people would ever want to wear this pair at least. The shoes are pink (but of course!) but also strangely ugly.

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