In 1982 Gloria Vanderbilt was already an iconic figure. Famous since her birth, she was the daughter of Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, heir to a great fortune thanks to the family business of building and operating the railroad, and his second wife, Gloria Morgan. Her father died when she was only 18 months old, making her the immediate beneficiary of a five million dollar fund at the time along with her half-sister Cathleen Vanderbilt. Soon the press baptized her as “poor rich girl”: her mother often traveled to Paris and led a high lifestyle, so her aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Witney fought for custody of the girl in what the media of the time called “ “the trial of the century.” The courts ruled in her favor and Gloria lived with her aunt for most of her childhood. At 17 she posed for the first time for Harper's Bazaar before the goal of George Hoyningen-Huene and when he turned 21 he received what remained of his inheritance. A year later, he cut off his mother's allowance and decided to use her fortune to feed his passions for acting, modeling, painting and design. Vanderbilt studied briefly at the Art Students League in New York City, developing an artistic talent for which she would become increasingly known throughout her career. Only three years later, in 1948 and when she was 24 years old, she presented her first art exhibition.
Gloria also studied acting and made her debut in Pennsylvania in 1954 with the play The Swan, the first reference to the swan that later marked his life and career. Her life was so fascinating that it has often been said that Vanderbilt inspired Truman Capote's character Holly in Breakfast at Tiffany's, the one that later catapulted Audrey Hepburn to fame. The truth is that she was one of those original 'swans', ladies of New York society married to powerful men, and all of them elegant and sophisticated (Babe Paley, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill…), with whom the writer already established friendship. those who betrayed by telling their intimacies in The Basque Coast, 1965a story that he published in 1975. His story will take over the new season of Feud, titled Capote vs. The Swans, a Ryan Murphy miniseries that FX will premiere at the end of January in the United States.
At that time, Gloria Vanderbilt's character still had many layers to build and had now ventured into textile design, so she was waiting for her big opportunity in the world of fashion. And this came in the seventies.
In 1976, Murjani, a designer of Indian origin with a store on Seventh Avenue in New York, wanted to make his jeans stand out from all the others. Vanderbilt was already working on a line of blouses for the brand and accepted the offer: the jeans They displayed his name on the back pocket and had a small swan on the front pocket, a reference to his theater debut that would become his icon. In 1977, Vanderbilt herself starred in the jeans' television ad, a million-dollar campaign, and they were dubbed the first jeans designer in the world. According to Murjani, on the day the spot The 150,000 pairs of jeans the company had produced were sold out. Two years later his line was the best-selling in the United States, surpassing rivals such as Calvin Klein.
At that moment of great success, Gloria Vanderbilt took another turn in her career and created one of the scents of the decade. Because as Diane von Furstenberg said in The New York Times after Vanderbilt's death: “She was relevant in everything she did. “She kept the spirit of the times for almost a century.”
In 1982, before the great boom of fashion designers taking advantage of the commercial vein of perfumes, Gloria Vanderbilt closed an agreement with L'Oréal that lasted until 2002. And she launched Vanderbilt, a bottle decorated with a carved swan that, unlike other big names, was sold at an affordable price. Later, Chanel created Coco in 1984 and Calvin Klein launched Obsession in 1985, the same year Dior launched Poison. For the first time designer names eclipsed perfume brands: Paco Rabanne with Calandre (1984), Lagerfeld with Chloé perfumes in 1987 and a year later, in 1988, Emmanuel Ungaro released Diva.
The fragrance was created by master perfumer Sonja Grojsman, the nose behind Yves Saint Laurent Paris, Trésor de Lancôme, Prescriptives Calyx and Frédéric Malle Outrageous, to name a few of her hits. It is a floral fragrance and, as with other perfumes from the 1980s, its aroma is quite overwhelming. Women's fragrances of the time were daring, designed to make a statement and were used in large quantities. They were characterized by bold, intense and complex aromas. Vanderbilt definitely smacked of his era. Vanderbilt's floral composition included notes of orange blossom, lavender, pineapple, bergamot, jasmine, tuberose, ylang ylang, carnation, rose, orris, vetiver, opoponax, sandalwood, civet, musk and vanilla.
The union of Gloria Vanderbilt with L'Oréal resulted in 16 fragrances, the last one launched in 2016, created by many famous and prestigious noses, such as Dora Baghriche (creator of Mon Paris by Yves Saint Laurent with Olivier Cresp), Francis Kurkdjian (current Creative Director of Dior Perfumes and author of Baccarat Rouge 540), Christine Nagel (Miss Dior Chérie is her work), Sonia Constant (who has worked for Tom Ford, Narciso Rodríguez or Carolina Herrera) or Olivier Pescheux (creator of iconic perfumes like One Million, by Paco Rabanne).
The life of Vanderbilt, who sold the rights to her name in 1978, continued to forge her legend with four marriages (the first to a Hollywood mobster, Pad DiCicco; the second to a director 42 years her senior, Leopold Stokowski; the third , with director Sidney Lumet, and the fourth with author Wyatt Emory Cooper). Among her loves were also Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Howard Hughes and Roald Dahl. Professionally, she also remained prolific: she wrote short story collections, was a regular contributor to The New York Times, Vanity Fair and Elle, and at the age of 85 he surprised New York society when he published an erotic graphic novel. A thousand lives in one. She died in 2019 at age 95. In Manhattan, how could it be otherwise.
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