Lady Duff Gordon(1863-1935)

Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, famous as "Lucile", was a top fashion designer with a clientele of royalties, socialites and entertainment celebrities. Her firm, "Lucile, Ltd," flourished from the turn of the century into the early 1920s. Lady Duff Gordon is best remembered for her work in the performing arts. She costumed the operetta "The Merry Widow" on the London stage (1907), the "Ziegfeld Follies" revues (1915-1921) on Broadway, and such early silent films as "The Perils of Pauline" (1914) and "Way Down East" (1920). As a designer, she is credited with staging the first runway shows, promoting romantic lingerie and introducing the slit skirt. A sister of novelist/ screenwriter Elinor Glyn, Lady Duff Gordon was a survivor of the "Titanic" disaster (1912).