Lucile Ltd: Paris, New York and Chicago 1890's-1930's

The life and work of London's leading fashion designer in the early twentieth century in a superbly presented edition.

Mrs Lucy Wallace, Lady Duff Gordon as she became, transformed her business from a modest home-based dressmakers into the leading fashion enterprise Lucile Ltd, with salons in London, Paris, New York and Chicago. The fashion media ranked her work alongside Jacques Doucet and Paul Poiret. Her lavish and alluring fashions attracted a prestigious bevy of Edwardian beauties including Georgina, Countess of Dudley, Lille Langtry and Lily Elsie. This unique book is based on the V and A's unpublished Lucile archive and focuses on her Autumn 1905 fashion album, which features hand painted plates and samples of luxurious fabrics and trimmings. Also drawing on Lady Duff Gordon's intriguing autobiography, her story gives valuable insights into the rarefied world of high society and the extraordinary times through which she lived.