The '90s unabashed courtship with Page Three has toppled, making way instead to polite 'no-press' parties that thrive on the idiosyncratic style of the hostess to make a success of it, not the number of flashbulbs. Snobbery is the new black (again) and it's okay to pooh-pooh the philistine.

Bandana Tewari deconstructs the 'ladies who launch' who have replaced society's 'ladies who lunch'

One part sex kitten, one part globetrotter and just about every other part super-efficient wife, mother or lover, today's locomotion ladies are all sparkle and sizzle. And they are everywhere. Whether it's straddling a social cause or giving their derrière their due, society women do what the cherry does to a pudding. They make the mundane, look delectably sublime.

"I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumours to my dogs," said Andy Warhol, the man responsible for spawning a culture that thrived on whether you served caviar at a party or not. He exemplified the late '70s and '80s excesses of high-life that saw women and wealth being displayed in some strange ways. There were naked girls that popped out of birthday cakes, limpid beauties that floated in giant champagne bowls (from where you and your friends could partake in a communal drink) and everyone twinkled like chandeliers. There was even a photograph of Bianca Jagger shaving her armpit seconds before she walked out of her limo to a sea of paparazzi. She was the ultimate social queen. In the midst of his torrid romance with her, Mick Jagger would fly to Paris between concert dates just to see her for a few hours.

But it's 2004 now and thank god 'flash' is dead. All hail the Power-Buffed Girl! Glitter has given way to gleam, brash to blush; in short, Social Disease has given way to Social Panache. Bling-bling is too Hiltonesque and may warrant a salacious tag; head to toe D&G is strictly for Milan and it's quite the thing to announce unabashedly that real men do listen to their wives and opera. Spare her your 'you-are-the lady-who-lunches' sneer. It is well known that this epithet is as passé as your yearning for a real Vuitton. Believe columnist, Kanika Gehlaut, when she says that the 'lunching ladies' have given way to 'launching ladies'.

This Power Buff Girl is invited everywhere. But discretion is her pet Chihuahua. The '90s unabashed courtship with Page Three has toppled, making way instead to polite 'no-press' parties that thrive on the idiosyncratic style of the hostess to make a success of it, not the number of flashbulbs. Snobbery is the new black (again) and it's okay to pooh-pooh the philistine.