Duff Gordon, Lucy, Lady

Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon, was born Lucy Christiana Sutherland in London in 1863. She began a dressmaking business after her divorce from James Stuart Wallace. The business was successful and evolved into Maison Lucile, a couture house known for Lucile's ethereal and colorful designs, as well as for its celebrity clientele. In 1900 she married Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. In addition to her couture house, she wrote fashion columns for the Hearst papers as well as fashion magazines. Some of the commissions she worked on around the time of these sketches were for the British premiere of the Franz Lehar operetta, The merry widow (1907), for Broadway's Ziegfeld follies revues (1915-1921), and for the Hollywood film, Way down East (1920). She died on April 20, 1935, at the age of 71, of breast cancer at a nursing home in London.

From the description of Drawings, 1913-1923, 1913-1917. (University of California, Los Angeles). WorldCat record id: 59137367

Biography

Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon, was born Lucy Christiana Sutherland in London in 1863. She began a dressmaking business after her divorce from James Stuart Wallace. The business was successful and evolved into Maison Lucile, a couture house known for Lucile's ethereal and colorful designs, as well as for its celebrity clientele. In 1900 she married Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. In addition to her couture house, she wrote fashion columns for the Hearst papers as well as fashion magazines. Some of the commissions she worked on around the time of these sketches were for the British premiere of the Franz Lehar operetta, The merry widow (1907), for Broadway's Ziegfeld follies revues (1915-1921), and for the Hollywood film, Way down East (1920). She died on April 20, 1935, at the age of 71, of breast cancer at a nursing home in London.

From the guide to the Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon drawings, 1913-1923, 1913-1917, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)