Transfigurations

I have to get Martin Stannard's Muriel Spark biography:

Her own bodily transfiguration was less spiritual than Christ’s, but as striking in its way. It was brought about, Stannard tells us, with the aid of manicures, waxes, perms, designer dresses, perfume and jewellery, and the result was a “mythological” being, the personification of glamour. One acquaintance recalls a vision of white fox furs and diamonds shimmering up to him at a party, and realising only later that it was Spark. She had an entourage of young men with whom she liked to be seen. They were never sexual partners, Stannard testifies, but “delightful accessories”, like her Cartier diamond wristwatch, or the Manhattan apartment that she bought but never used, or her racehorse, Lifeboat.