Marthe-Marguerite de Caylus
French woman of fashion, one of the brilliant wits and social leaders of the court of Louis XIV.
Category Archives: Fashion
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Elizabeth Keckley
Born into slavery, Elizabeth Keckley’s story is one of perseverance and ingenuity in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. As an African American businesswoman and philanthropist, Keckley defied stereotypes and redefined what an African American woman could accomplish in the Nineteenth Century.
Natalia Goncharova
Goncharova’s Rayonist and Futurist work influenced many of her Russian contemporaries, including Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin. In turn, two major new art movements were coined in Russia, Suprematism and Constructivism. Figurative scenes that had been fragmented into shards by Goncharova and Larinov became more and more abstract with only geometrical spaces recognizable as particular forms in the work of Malevich. This lead to a wave of abstract work being produced in Russia and Europe more widely.
In the artist’s later years, while her work as a painter received little attention, she was well known for her stage and costume designs, which were influenced by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the most innovative of ballet companies which had a long-lasting impact on dance, theatre, and opera productions. In the 21st century her work has again risen to the forefront, and she is today considered a leading Russian painter.
Sonia Delaunay
Delaunay’s textile designs extended the range of her influence into fashion, home decor and the theater. Her ability to introduce art into regular life by creating and wearing clothing, and living in spaces that were of her own design, can be seen as an early form of performance art, inspiring contemporary artists such as Marina Abramovic.
Agnes Addison
Agnes Addison entered a small community where mothers would be the customers for her future business venture. Within a year the Addison family had purchased a second cottage in Hamilton Street, in Hokitika’s government office district. Nearby Revell Street was infamous for its many hotels, saloons and miners’ gatherings, and against this environment Agnes Addison won a reputation as a teetotaller and a woman of high moral standards.
Amelia Jenks Bloomer
Amelia Jenks Bloomer was an early suffragist, editor, and social activist. Bloomer was also a fashion advocate who worked to change women’s clothing styles.
Pauline Walburga
Pauline Clémentine Marie Walburga, Princess of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein was a famous Austrian socialite who played an central role in the social and cultural life of Dresden and Paris, and, after 1871, Vienna. Renowned for her great charm and elegance as well as for her social commitment, she was an significant promoter of composers Richard Wagner, Bedřich Smetana and Franz Liszt. She was also a key figure in the creation of the haute couture industry; she introduced fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth to the French Empress Eugenie in 1860, starting his rise to fame.
São Schlumberger
Maria “São” Schlumberger (née da Concerção Diniz) was an American fashion and art patron and collector. She studied psychology at New York’s Columbia University, and then worked as a counsellor for juvenile delinquents in Lisbon, before studying art at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon).
In 1961, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon awarded her a fellowship to research children’s programs in New York museums.
In Paris, she lived in an 18th-century hôtel particulier (a large townhouse) in the Rue Férou, restored by French architect Pierre Barbe, with interior design by Valerian Rybar in “a provocative mix of classic and modern styles”.
Schlumberger particularly liked the work of artists Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein. Her portrait was painted by Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí, who also designed her an elaborate pearl-and-emerald necklace which she often wore.
She was a patron to the fashion designer John Galliano, and let him use her empty 17th-century Paris hotel particulier, for his autumn 1994 show.