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Finishing School
A finishing school focuses on teaching young women social graces and upper-class cultural rites as a preparation for entry into society. The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the education, with classes primarily on deportment and etiquette, with academic subjects secondary. It may consist of an intensive course, or a one-year programme. In the United States it is sometimes called a charm school. Graeme Donald claims that the educational ladies' salons of the late 19th century led to the formal, finishing institutions evidenced in Switzerland around that time. At their peak, thousands of wealthy young women were sent to the dozens of finishing schools available. A primary goal was to teach students to acquire husbands. The 1960s marked the decline of the finishing school. This can be attributed to the shifting conceptions of women's role in society, as well as succession issues within the typically family-run schools and so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upper Class
Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is generally distinguished by immense wealth which is passed on from generation to generation. Prior to the 20th century, the emphasis was on ''aristocracy'', which emphasized generations of inherited noble status, not just recent wealth. Because the upper classes of a society may no longer rule the society in which they are living, they are often referred to as the old upper classes, and they are often culturally distinct from the newly rich middle classes that tend to dominate public life in modern social democracies. According to the latter view held by the traditional upper classes, no amount of individual wealth or fame would make a person from an undistinguished background into a member of the upper class as one must be born into a famil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Tierney
Gene Eliza Tierney (November 19, 1920 – November 6, 1991) was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed for her great beauty, she became established as a leading lady. Tierney was best known for her portrayal of the title character in the film '' Laura'' (1944), and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ellen Berent Harland in ''Leave Her to Heaven'' (1945). Tierney's other roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in '' Heaven Can Wait'' (1943), Isabel Bradley Maturin in ''The Razor's Edge'' (1946), Lucy Muir in '' The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'' (1947), Ann Sutton in ''Whirlpool'' (1949), Mary Bristol in ''Night and the City'' (1950), Maggie Carleton McNulty in '' The Mating Season'' (1950), and Anne Scott in '' The Left Hand of God'' (1955). Early life Gene Eliza Tierney was born on November 19, 1920, in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavinia Taylor. She was named after a beloved uncle, who died young. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamara Mellon
Tamara Mellon (; born 7 July 1967) is a British fashion entrepreneur who co-founded the luxury footwear brand Jimmy Choo. Subsequently, Mellon founded her namesake luxury footwear brand, Tamara Mellon, with co-founder and CEO Jill Layfield and CDO Tania Spinelli in 2016. Early life Mellon was born Tamara Yeardye in London on 7 July 1967. The eldest of three siblings, she is a daughter of Tom Yeardye, a stunt double for Rock Hudson, and Ann (Davis) Yeardye, a former Chanel model. In 1976, the family relocated to Beverly Hills, California, in a home next door to Nancy Sinatra. She alternated summers between California and the UK. She studied at two independent girls' schools in Berkshire— Marist School and Heathfield St Mary's School—before attending finishing school in Switzerland at the now-defunct Institut Alpin Videmanette. She acquired her current surname from her ex-husband, Matthew Mellon, an American businessman and member of the prominent Mellon family. Caree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiggy Legge-Bourke
Alexandra Shân "Tiggy" Pettifer (née Legge-Bourke; born 1 April 1965) is a British former nanny and companion to Prince William and Prince Harry. She was a personal assistant to Charles III (then Prince of Wales) from 1993 to 1999. She has used her married name since her marriage to Charles Pettifer in 1999. Background Legge-Bourke is the daughter of William Legge-Bourke (1939–2009), who served in the Royal Horse Guards. After taking a degree at Magdalene College, Cambridge, her father then became a merchant banker at Kleinwort Benson and was deputy lieutenant of Powys from 1997 until his death. Legge-Bourke's mother, Dame Shân Legge-Bourke (born 1943), was the only child of Wilfred Bailey, 3rd Baron Glanusk (1891–1948), a soldier who became a colonel in the Grenadier Guards and also served as Lord Lieutenant of Brecknockshire. When Shân Bailey's father died in 1948, she and her mother inherited his estate at Glanusk Park, near Crickhowell in Powys, while his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diana, Princess Of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her activism and glamour made her an international icon, and earned her enduring popularity, as well as almost unprecedented public scrutiny. Diana was born into the British nobility, and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. In 1981, while working as a nursery teacher's assistant, she became engaged to the Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, William and Harry, who were then second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. Diana's marriage to Charles suffered due to their incompatibility and extramarital a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rougemont, Switzerland
Rougemont () is a municipality in the Pays-d'Enhaut of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. History Rougemont is first mentioned in 1115 as ''Rubeus Mons'' and ''Rogemot''. The name of the village also appears in various forms in medieval chronicles: ''Rubeimontis'', ''Rogemont'', ''Rubeo monte'', ''Rogo mons'', and ''Rojomont''. The name stems from the red rock outcroppings north of the village. The site was probably first settled by a religious order coming from Cluny in France, which had received the land in 1080 from the Count of Gruyère. In 1569, the priory was replaced by the château of Rougemont, which became the residence of the bailiffs of Bern, who succeeded the Count of Gruyère. The area became part of the canton of Vaud in 1798. Diana, Princess of Wales lived for some time at the city, in the late 1970s while a student at the Institut Alpin Videmanette. Geography Rougemont has an area, , of . Of this area, or 47.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institut Alpin Videmanette
The Institut Alpin Videmanette was a finishing school in the municipality of Rougemont, Switzerland. It was an all-girl school where the lessons were skiing, cooking, dressmaking and French. In 1973, the school was headed by Monsieur and Madame C. L. Yersin. In 1981, it was reported to have an age range between sixteen and twenty and to teach language and commercial programmes through the medium of the French language. The main facilities were in Château d'Œx. Tamara Mellon was at the school in the mid-1980s, when it had some sixty girls and was still headed by Madame Yersin. She later wrote of it that "The assumption was that you were a dunce and that the only hope for you was to attach yourself to what was known as a good provider." In her day there was a smoking room and in the winter months there were skiing lessons every afternoon. Girls would often meet boys from Le Rosey at a nightclub in Gstaad. The winter campus of Le Rosey was nearby. The school closed in 1991 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fabiola Beracasa-Beckman
Fabiola Beracasa Beckman is a film and television producer, philanthropist and socialite. She was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Beracasa Beckman is co-owner of The Hole Gallery, an art gallery in New York City. Early life and education Beracasa Beckman was born Maria Fabiola Beracasa in Caracas, Venezuela. Her father is Alfredo Beracasa, a Venezuelan banker and industrialist. Her mother, Veronica Hearst, married Randolph Apperson Hearst in 1987. Beracasa Beckman attended the Chateau Mont-Choisi boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, and later attended Boston College. Beracasa Beckman was creative director for Circa, a company that places fine and antique jewelry with dealers and private collectors around the world, until 2008. She is co-owner and creative director at The Hole Gallery in New York City. Career While attending school, Beracasa Beckman had a summer internship spanning 4 years at Chanel’s Paris studio. She worked at the New York office of Christian Dior overse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mai Yamani
Mai Yamani ( ar, مي يماني; born 6 September 1956) is an independent Saudi scholar, author and anthropologist. Early life Yamani was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1956 to an Iraqi mother from Mosul and a Saudi Arabian father from Mecca. Her paternal grandfathers came from Yemen, hence the surname Yamani ("from Yemen"). Her early education included schooling in Baghdad, Iraq and Mecca, Saudi Arabia. She attended secondary school at the renowned Château Mont-Choisi in Lausanne, Switzerland, from 1967 to 1975. She received her bachelor's degree ''summa cum laude'' (with highest honors) from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania; and subsequently attended Somerville College, University of Oxford, where she was the first Yemeni woman to obtain a M.St. and a D.Phil. from Oxford, in social anthropology. Career She started her career as a university lecturer in Saudi Arabia, and became a scholar at leading international think tanks in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. She has been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kitty Carlisle
Kitty Carlisle Hart (born Catherine Conn; September 3, 1910 – April 17, 2007) was an American actress, singer, and spokeswoman for the arts. She was the leading lady of the Marx Brothers movie '' A Night at the Opera'' (1935) and was a regular panelist on the television game show '' To Tell the Truth'' (1956-1978). She served 20 years on the New York State Council on the Arts. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Arts from President George H. W. Bush. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1999. Early life Kitty Carlisle was born as Catherine Conn (pronounced Cohen) in New Orleans, Louisiana, of German-Jewish heritage. Her grandfather, Ben Holzman, was the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, and a Confederate veteran of the American Civil War. He had been a gunner on the , the Confederate ironclad warship that fought the at the Battle of Hampton Roads. Her father, Joseph Conn, MD, was a gynecologist who died when she was ten years old. Her mother, H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monique Lhuillier
Monique Lhuillier (born September 15, 1971) is a Filipino-French fashion designer and creative director known for her bridal, ready-to-wear and lifestyle brand. She launched her eponymous brand in 1996 and has since established fashion houses in Los Angeles, California, where she primarily works and lives, as well as in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Early life and education Lhuillier was born to Michel J. Lhuillier, a French-born Filipino businessman and owner of the M Lhuillier chain of pawnshops, and Amparito Llamas, a Filipina society figure and former model. She grew up in Cebu City and studied at Saint Theresa's College, continuing on to the Chateau Mont-Choisi finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland. Career After meeting her husband Tom Bugbee, Lhuillier began planning her wedding, which was her first foray on the bridal market, and thought it needed updating. She could not find any modern dresses, and did not like the excess of lace. She used her fashion degree to cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Princess Elena Of Romania
Princess Elena of Romania (born 15 November 1950) is the second eldest daughter of King Michael I and Queen Anne of Romania. Elena would have been first in the line of succession to the former Romanian throne and headship of the House of Romania has her elder sister Margareta passed away without issue in the future. Early life Birth Elena was born on 15 November 1950 at Clinique de Montchoisi in Lausanne, Switzerland as the second daughter of King Michael I and Queen Anne. She was baptised in the Orthodox faith; her godmothers were her paternal grandmother Helen, Queen Mother of Romania (who was also her namesake) and also Queen Mary of the United Kingdom. Childhood Elena spent her childhood at her family homes in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in the United Kingdom at Ayot House, St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; during holidays she and her sisters spent time with their grandmother, Helen, Queen Mother in Florence, Italy at Villa Sparta and in Denmark with Princess Margaret a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
