Sophia won't grow old gracefully

At 73, she looks stupendous. No other word for it.

But why did this normally elegant and classy older woman decide to appear in photos to celebrate her youngest son’s wedding wearing a see-through skirt, a bra and a wide-open satin jacket?

“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti,” La Lola once said. On this occasion, she must have meant gnocchi. And lots of it.

Having your dumplings so prominently on display (even if they are incredibly well-preserved at an age when many a woman’s have turned to suet crust) is an odd thing to do at 73. It’s very Blanche DuBois. And it gets people whispering about things like eccentricity, vanity and the merits of growing old gracefully.

It’s an even odder thing to do when you’re posing alongside your new daughter-in-law in her demure white lace gown, though. And then it gets people whispering about upstaging and jealousy.

Surely it can’t be true of the ever-confident, intelligent and charming Sophia?

Maybe, while everyone who has seen those bizarre pictures in Hello! magazine this week is actually doing Loren and her new daughter-in-law a massive disservice.

While we’re all assuming that bride Sasha must have felt miffed on the one time in her life when she was supposed to be centre stage, maybe she found it quite amusing that the eyes of the world were firmly fixed on her new mum’s miraculous bosom rather than dissecting her, millimetre by millimetre.

And that, far from feeling threatened by the prospect of ending up with surely the world’s most glamorous mother-in-law, she’s delighted.

After all, think of the beauty tips she’ll pick up.