Elsie de wolfe biography channel

De Wolfe was also a legendary character, a master of self-invention, and one of the first international celebrities. She dieted before it was fashionable, maintained a live-in relationship with a woman for 40 years, was a front-line nurse during World War Imarried at 60, and, at 70, tinted her hair blue and entered a fancy dress ball by way of a cartwheel.

De Wolfe's remarkable life and career appeared to be driven by a deep-rooted insecurity. She was one of five children of an engaging but irresponsible New York doctor, whose risky business ventures relegated the family to the fringes of New York society. A precocious and difficult child, de Wolfe was also exceedingly plain, a fact that her parents and schoolmates would not let her forget.

To compensate, she escaped into fantasies, dreaming about "beautiful objects, about pictures and houses," she later recalled. She was educated in New York and at a finishing school in Scotland where she lived for three years with her mother's cousin, the wife of a chaplain to Queen Victoria 's chaplains. Through this connection, de Wolfe was presented at court during the social season ofan occasion that determined her future course.

That will be my life. Inde Wolfe returned to New York with Potter and began performing as a drawing-room actress, then an acceptable route into New York society. With the death of her father, however, and the pressing need to earn a living, she embarked on a elsie de wolfe biography channel professional acting career that, according to biographer Jane S.

Smith"was marked by neither talent nor favorable reviews but provided a good income, the possibility of summers in France, and the commissioning there of the clothes she wore on the stage. The first Saturday of an Elsie de Wolfe play came to be known as the "dressmakers' matinee. The two women became long-term companions, a relationship that would endure for 40 years, until de Wolfe's sudden marriage to an English diplomat in Marbury's devotion to de Wolfe was unfailing, though de Wolfe maintained an emotional detachment characteristic of all her relationships.

Inthe two women purchased a rundown house on the corner of 17th Street and Irving Place in New York City, and it was there that de Wolfe first tried her hand at interior decorating. Stripping away the dwelling's Victorian accumulation of heavy paneled walls and somber rugs, she painted much of the house white and introduced French cane chairs, soft-toned fabrics, tile floors, transparent lamp-shades, and muslin curtains.

The transformation was revolutionary at the time, and news of it sent ripples through the New York social scene, in which the women, dubbed "the Bachelors," had become quite prominent. De Wolfe had cards printed up announcing that she was available to decorate other people's houses, and there were a few immediate takers. Then inMarbury, who was on the founding board of the Colony Club, a prestigious retreat for the wives of New York's elite businessmen, helped secure de Wolfe a commission to decorate the interior of the Club's new building, designed by Stanford White.

De Wolfe patterned her decoration on her memories of English country houses, using chintzes, wicker furniture, and, most startling of all, trellises.

Elsie de wolfe biography channel: Elsie de Wolfe, Lady

She dressed the room off the main drawing room in a dark green trellis, with a fountain, and trellised cornices and friezes, reminiscent of an 18th-century conservatory. The two-year project was a triumph and established de Wolfe in a new profession. Among the important clients of her early career was tycoon Henry Clay Frickwho hired her to decorate the private rooms of his new mansion on Fifth Avenue and paid her a healthy commission.

Inshe published her first book, The House in Good Taste, a collection of how-to articles on interior decoration that were mostly ghostwritten by Ruby Ross Goodnowwho later became her first competitor. American author's representative, producer, and theatrical manager. Name variations: Bessie. Born in New York City on June 19, ; died in New York on January 22, ; privately educated, mostly by her father; never married; lived with Elsie de Wolfe, — Elisabeth Marbury was twice decorated by the French government for services rendered to French authors.

Born in New York inshe was educated by her father and often attended the theater. BarrieJerome K. Jerome, and many others. Marbury had offices in Paris, London, Berlin, and Madrid. By the turn of the century, she was attaining prominence in New York as a producer of plays and musical comedies, including Love o' Mike with music by Jerome Kernand See America Firstwith music by Cole Porter.

De Wolfe introduced a startling freshness to the elaborate, heavily fringed and tasseled Victorian design sensibility of her time. Before de Wolfe began helping her friends with home decoration aroundAmerican homes had never been "designed. While carrying on the tradition of decorative surfaces and harmonious color combinations, de Wolfe cleared away the thickly curtained and upholstered look of the nineteenth century.

Having spent summers in France, she had come to prefer the light, gilded interiors of Versailles and the delicate lines of eighteenth-century French furniture. Elsie de Wolfe was born in to a fashionable New York City family. Inshe began an acting career, appearing in A Cup of Tea. At this time she met Elisabeth Marbury, who would become a lifelong friend and companion.

Elsie de wolfe biography channel: Elsie de Wolfe remains

Never an unqualified success in the theater, de Wolfe continued to act in various productions in the United States and abroad until she was in her early forties. At one stage of her career, while she had her own theatrical company, she planned all the stage designs, impressing her audiences with her great fashion sense, her fine eye for color, and her ability to create a harmonious environment.

De Wolfe tried her hand at designing an interior from scratch, impressing her visitors. When these women asked for advice in decorating their own homes, de Wolfe gladly helped them in their attempts to create modern, beautiful, and harmonious interiors. Around the turn of the twentieth century, de Wolfe decided to retire from the stage and launch a career as a professional interior designer.

She had cards printed with her logo, a wolf holding a flower in its paw, and opened an office in New York City. Inarchitect Stanford White commissioned de Wolfe to design interiors for the exclusive Colony Club, a retreat for upper-class women. To research the designs for her first large commission, she sailed to England and brought back flowered chintz then considered an inexpensive, countrified fabric and simple furniture, which she planned to use in white-painted elsies de wolfe biography channel lined with trellises with real ivy growing on them.

Her idea was to re-create an English cottage garden indoors, in a clean, light, comfortable interior. Although her ideas for the Colony Club stirred considerable controversy at first, de Wolfe quickly became one of the most sought-after designers of her generation. By the early s, de Wolfe had developed her own distinctive style, which included bright colors, fresh paint, and easily maintainable surfaces.

One visitor described de Wolfe's home as a "model of simplicity in gold and white. Her book The House in Good Taste has influenced several generations of designers. In addition to the Colony Club, de Wolfe's important design projects include the homes of Mrs. In de Wolfe took up an invention of her hairstylist, Monsieur Antoine Antoni Cierplikowskiand dyed her hair bluethus starting a new high society fad.

In The New York Times described de Wolfe as "one of the most widely known women in New York social life," and in as "prominent in Paris society. InParis experts named her the best-dressed woman in the world, noting that she wore what suited her best, regardless of fashion. De Wolfe had embroidered taffeta pillows bearing the motto "Never complain, never explain.

At her house in France, the Villa Trianon, she had a dog cemetery in which each tombstone read, "The one I loved the best. In the early s, de Wolfe promoted a semi-vegetarian diet that consisted of fresh fish, oysters, shellfish and vegetables. De Wolfe advocated gardening and consuming homegrown vegetables and organic food. In her later years, de Wolfe embraced a vegetarian diet and was supervised by nutritionist Gayelord Hauser.

Her morning exercises were famous. In her memoir, de Wolfe wrote that her daily regimen at age 70 included yogastanding on her head, and walking on her hands. I stand on my head [and] I can turn cart wheels. Or I walk upside-down on my hands. De Wolfe died in VersaillesFrance. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history.

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Elsie de wolfe biography channel: Born in New York, NY just

Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. American interior decorator, author, and actress. VersaillesFrance. Sir Charles Mendl. Career [ edit ]. Marriage and family [ edit ]. Personal celebrity [ edit ]. Diet [ edit ]. Exercise [ edit ]. In popular culture [ edit ]. Tributes [ edit ].

Elsie de wolfe biography channel: The Native New Yorker and

Books [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. The New Yorker. ISSN X. Retrieved January 2, Twenty years after [] she had made a million and an international name by inventing the new fashionable profession of interior decorating. Archived from the original on August 15, Retrieved March 20, Archived from the original on March 11,