Lovers of celebrity are urged to hotfoot it to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London where a fabulous exhibition devoted to the work of the photographer Horst P. Horst (so good they named him twice) is currently pulling in the punters. Horst: Photographer of Style runs until January 4.

Horst, as he was known professionally, was a German-born photographer (1906-1999) whose work, over an astonishing six decades spanned the worlds of art, fashion, design, theatre and high-society. He was best known for his pictures for Vogue (more than 90 of his covers are on display, with blow-ups of the images involved). He also turned his lens on lavish homes for House and Garden, including those belonging to Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent.

Iconic film stars such as Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Marlene Dietrich, Vivien Leigh, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis feature in the show, the last two dangerously proximate on the gallery walls. Here, too, are some of his early models and muses — Lisa Fonssagrives (who features in a fascinating study of Horst at a fashion shoot), Helen Bennett and Lyla Zelensky — with whom he worked to define the archetype of 1930s chic, their beauty as serene as it is sometimes cold.

The opulence of pre-war haute couture, which he captured for Vogue in Paris and New York, is here — the days of Chanel, Worth, Lanvin, Molyneux and Vionnet, most of whom were his friends.

Surrealism figures, too, as it was bound to in this period, and we learn of his collaborations with Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dali, who is pictured in iconic style, as is his wife Gala.

Having said all this, I feel somewhat embarrassed to admit that until I was invited to the show, Horst’s was a name of which I was only dimly aware. The same was true until recently of Valentino, one of his friends as it happens. You see him among other slebs (Greta Garbo, Noël Coward, Edith Sitwell) at the amazing house on New York’s Long Island that Horst shared with his long-term partner, the British diplomat Valentine Lawford. Now I hear about Valentino everywhere. I gain some reassurance from having found friends in similar ignorance concerning Horst. In their case, though, they do not have good reason, as I do, to know who he is.

We share a birthday, August 14, and over many years I must have seen his name dozens of times when consulting the Daily Telegraph’s birthdays column to discover — if astrologers are to be believed — who might prove to be a soulmate. (Frederick Raphael is another August 14-er; we have exchanged birthday greetings in the past.) Ever one to applaud arts sponsorship (where would we be without it?), I am delighted to report that the V&A show is supported by our very own Bicester Village — if that is not an odd way to describe somewhere so popular with visitors from abroad that most bypass the county’s other attractions altogether in their rush to reach it.

Communications manager Sarah Emburey tells me that she and her colleagues have collaborated with the show’s curator, Susanna Brown, in selecting 20 images which are displayed in groups throughout the village with explanatory text.

“We also have an area in the village where we are inviting guests to take a photograph and enter it into the V&A’s Instagram competition (#myhorstphoto) and we will be helping the V&A raise awareness of this competition in which you can win a gift card for a shopping spree in London, among other amazing prizes.”