Gloria Guinness

Gloria Guinness (born Gloria Rubio y Alatorre; 27 August 1912 – 9 November 1980)^[2] was a Mexican socialite and fashion icon, as well as a contributing editor to Harper's Bazaar from 1963 to 1971, considered to be one of the most elegant women of all time.

Family and origins[]

Gloria Rubio y Alatorre was born in Guadalajara,^[3] Mexico. She was the daughter of José Rafael Rubio y Torres (1880, Michoacán, México – 1917, San Antonio, Texas),^[4] a liberal journalist who supported Francisco I. Madero for which he died in exile in the United States, and his aristocratic wife doña Maria Luisa Dolores Alatorre y Diaz-Ocampo (b. 1882),^[5][4][6] who belonged to a Spanish colonial landowning family from Jalisco, and was a cousin of Mexican writer and diplomat Alfonso Reyes, as well as to the heirs of the mayorazgo de Jasso. María Luisa Alatorre's brothers in law included don Gaspar Rubio de Tejada y Benavente, a cousin of the renowned 19th century art collector ,^[7] as well as don Jesús Colón de Larreátegui y Vallarta, a descendant of the 1st Duke of Veragua, Spanish title given to the son of Christopher Columbus. Gloria had two elder siblings: Rafael and Maria Luisa.^[8]

Gloria's childhood was always on the move, mainly due to her father's political persecution and early death in exile. Gloria and her siblings spent most of their youth and childhood hopping around the fincas and haciendas of her mother's wealthy relatives, such as the Jasso and Sánchez de Aldana families, with whom the Rubios lived for periods of time, often dressing up for the small theater performances which were very frequently organized for the children by her aunt Isabel. Nevertheless, the constant state of war in Mexico at the time forced the families to leave the countryside for different cities.

Legendary origins[]

Because of her supposed espionage (others say to make herself seem more exotic), Guinness frequently lied about her origins, officially claiming she was born in Veracruz (when she was actually born in Guadalajara), that her father was a revolutionary killed in action (when he was a journalist who died of health complications in a health clinic in San Antonio, Texas) and saying that her mother was either a laundry maid or a seamstress (when she was well established member of the local elite).

In any case, while everyone in her social circle tried to "play it up", Gloria had more fun "playing it down", and as such, transmitted a light and unpretentious attitude that made people easily attracted to her and still be considered "the most elegant woman in the World", according to Eleanor Lambert.^[9]

Fashion[]

At an advanced age Guinness began to frequently write for Harper's Bazaar. She famously asserted, in the magazine's July 1963 issue, that "Elegance is in the brain as well as the body and in the soul. Jesus Christ is the only example we have of any one human having possessed all three at the same time."^{[citation needed]}

The Most Elegant Woman in the World[]

Despite being voted in second place at Time magazine's "Best Dressed Woman In the World" in 1962, losing to the then First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy,^[10] Eleanor Lambert famously asserted that without a doubt Gloria Guinness was "to me, the most elegant woman in the World".^[9]

Guinness was dressed by various top-couture designers like Cristóbal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, Marc Bohan at Christian Dior, Chanel, Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino Garavani, Halston and shoes by Roger Vivier.^{[citation needed]}

She was one of the models to wear capri pants by Emilio Pucci. She was photographed for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Woman's Wear Daily by Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, John Rawlings, Toni Frissell, Horst P. Horst, Slim Aarons and Henry Clarke. She was painted by artists like René Bouché, Kenneth Paul Block and Alejo Vidal-Quadras.

She appeared on the International Best Dressed List from 1959 through 1963. The year after, she was elevated into its Hall of Fame.^[11][12]

Rumour of espionage[]

There is a long-standing rumor that Gloria Guinness was employed as a spy at some point and that when she married her fourth husband, she had no valid passport and was legally stateless. This rumor is substantiated to a certain degree by her appearance in a series of supposedly nonfiction books written by Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones. Griffith knew Guinness during World War Two and was a friend, fellow spy (originally on the opposite side, the Countess was still an American citizen during the war, and an employee of the OSS), and sometime adversary of Guinness. Guinness was an almost legendary character by this point, the glamorous "Countess von Fürstenberg" who maintained friendships with important Nazis, including Hermann Göring and even Adolf Hitler himself,^{[citation needed]} and lived in neutral Madrid throughout the latter days of the Second World War as an espionage agent for the Axis.^[13]

Personal life[]

Gloria Rubio was married four times. Her first marriage, to Jacobus Hendrik Franciscus Scholtens, a Dutch-born, Veracruz-based^[14] sugar-factory superintendent,^[15] took place in Mexico City on 31 March 1933.^[16] Rubio was 20, and the groom, a son of Jan Scholtens and Maria Le Comte, was 47.^[17] They later divorced.^[18]

Her second marriage was to Franz-Egon Maria Meinhard Engelbert Pius Aloysius Kaspar Ferdinand Dietrich, third Graf von Fürstenberg-Herdringen (1896–1975), whom she married on 4 October 1935, in Kensington, London, England;^[19] she was his second wife and had a stepdaughter from her husband's first marriage, the actress Betsy von Furstenberg. By him, she had two children:

• Dolores Maria Agatha Wilhelmine Luise, Freiin von Fürstenberg-Hedringen (31 July 1936 – 20 January 2012). She married her stepbrother, Patrick Benjamin Guinness, on 22 October 1955; he was killed in an automobile accident in 1965 in Switzerland.^[20]
• Franz-Egon Engelbert Raphael Christophorus Hubertus, Freiherr von Fürstenberg-Hedringen (born 27 July 1939 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf).^[21] He married Agneta Sundby (born 12 April 1943), a Swedish model on 20 August 1967, in Visnum church, Visnum, Sweden.^[22] After their divorce, he married Adelina von Fürstenberg née Cuberyan.

Her third marriage was to Ahmad-Abu-El-Fotouh Fakhry Bey (1921–1998), whom she married in 1946 and divorced in 1949. The only child of Princess Fawkia of Egypt, Countess Wladimir d’Adix-Dellmensingen,^{[citation needed]} and her first husband, Mahmud Fakhry Pasha, he was a grandson of King Fuad I of Egypt and a nephew of Princess Fawzia of Egypt (the first wife of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran) and of King Farouk I of Egypt.^{[citation needed]}

Her fourth, and final, marriage was to Group Captain Thomas Loel Guinness (1906–1988), a Member of Parliament and a member of the extended Guinness beer family, though his particular branch made its fortune in banking and real estate. They married on 7 April 1951, in Antibes. By this marriage, she had three stepchildren: Patrick Benjamin Guinness (1931–1965); William Loel Seymour Guinness (born 1939), and Belinda Guinness (born 1941), wife of 5th and last Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.

Among Guinness's lovers were David Beatty, 2nd Earl Beatty, and the British ambassador to France Duff Cooper,^[23] who wrote of her, "I have never loved anybody physically so much or been so supremely satisfied".^[24]

In 1980, Gloria Guinness died of a heart attack at Villa Zanroc in Epalinges, Switzerland. She is buried next to her last husband at the Bois de Vaux Cemetery in Lausanne.

Descendants[]

Through her daughter Dolores and stepson Patrick, she was the grandmother of Maria Alexandra Guinness (b. 1956), who married Foulques, Count de Quatrebarbes (b. 1948), with issue, in 1979, and, after their divorce, Neville Cook; (b. 1957); and Victoria Guinness (b. 1960), who married Philip Niarchos in 1984, son of Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, with issue.^[18]

Residences[]

The Guinnesses had an apartment in Manhattan's Waldorf Towers, an 18th-century farmhouse called Villa Zanroc in Epalinges near Lausanne, a 350-ton yacht, an apartment on Avenue Matignon in Paris, decorated by Georges Geffroy, a stud farm in Normandy, Haras de Piencourt, and Gemini, a mansion at Manalapan, Florida.^[25][26][27]

The Florida property, which is divided by U.S. Highway A1A, faces the lake on one side and the ocean on the other; the two halves of the building, which was designed in the 1940s by architect Marion Syms Wyeth for , were ingeniously connected by a sound-proofed living room that was set beneath the bisecting road. In addition, the Guinnesses built a house in Acapulco, Mexico.^[28] They also kept three aircraft: an for short trips around Europe, a small jet, and a helicopter for Loel Guinness's hops between the Manalapan house and the Palm Beach golf course.^{[citation needed]}

Philanthropy[]

Among the seventeen outfits, twelve hats and pairs of shoes that she donated were a 1948 Balenciaga evening gown of organdy with flock flowers, an evening gown from 1965, a 1949 hand-painted evening gown by Marcelle Chaumont and a 1950s evening gown by Jeanne Lafaurie, the only dress by that designer in the collection of Victoria & Albert Museum.^[29][30][31]

See also[]

• House of Fürstenberg (Westphalia)
• Guinness family

Notes[]

References[]

• No author. Thomas L.E.B. Guinness Weds, The New York Times, 8 April 1951.
• Ballard, Bettina, In My Fashion, New York: David McKay, 1960.
• Donovan, Carrie, Mrs. Guinness: Rare Fashion Leader; Couturiers Are Guided by Her Personal Style Flair Has Plan for Dressing for Four Homes in Varied Locales, The New York Times, 5 December 1961.
• No author. The Rich: Having a Marvelous Time, Time, 26 January 1962.
• Guinness, Gloria, Gloria On Elegance, Harper's Bazaar, July 1963.
• Guinness, Gloria, Gloria Guinness, New York: Hearst, 1966.
• Bender, Marylin, The Beautiful People, New York: Coward-McCann, 1967.
• Nemy, Enid, Venice Draws International Set; Masked Ball to Aid City's Craftsmen Gala to Be in Palace on the Grand Canal, The New York Times, 4 September 1967.
• Bender, Marylin, A Prize for Mrs. Guinness, The New York Times, 2 November 1967.
• Klemesrud, Judy, They Expected a Snob, They Heard a Comedian, The New York Times, 3 December 1970.
• Ginsburg, Madeleine, Fashion: an anthology by Cecil Beaton, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1971.
• No author. Gloria Guinness, 67, Trend-Setter In Fashion and Hospitality, Dead, The New York Times, 10 November 1980.
• Payn, Graham and Sheridan Morley, editors, The Noel Coward diaries, Londong: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982.
• Jouve, Marie-Andree and Jacqueline Demornex, editors, Balenciaga, Paris: Editions du Regard, 1988.
• Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Freiherrliche Häuser, Band XV, Seite 135–177, Band 69 der Gesamtreihe, C. A. Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1989.
• Join-Dieterle, Catherine, Train, Susan and Lepicard, Marie-Jose, Givenchy – 40 Ans de Creation, Paris: Paris-Musees, 1991.
• Tapert, Annette & Edkins, Diana, The Power of Style - The Women Who Defined The Art of Living Well, Crown Publishers, New York, 1994.
• Jouve, Marie-Andrée, Fashion Memoir - Balenciaga, London: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
• Plimpton, George, Truman Capote, In which various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors recall his Turbulent Career, New York: Nan A. Talese, 1997.
• Mohrt, Françoise, Le style Givenchy, New York: Editions Assouline, 1998.
• Mower, Sarah, Oscar De La Renta, New York: Assouline, 2002.
• Mosley, Charles, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition, volume 2, p. 1695.
• Vickers, Hugo, The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as He Wrote Them, 1970–1980, New York: Knopf, 2003.
• Horyn, Cathy, On the Block, Grande Dame Décor, The New York Times, 13 March 2003.
• Zilkha, Bettina, Ultimate Style-The Best Of The Best Dressed List, New York: Assouline, 2004.
• Wilcox, Clarie, The Golden Age of Couture - Paris and London 1947–57, London: V&A Publications, 2007.
• Werle, Simone, Fashionista : A Century of Style Icons, Prestel Publishing, 2009.
• Killen, Mary, Make Mine A Guinness, Tatler, November 2009.
• Fiori, Pamela, The Glory of Gloria Guinness, Harper's Bazaar, October 2010, pp. 273–280.