Jacqueline, comtesse de Ribes (born 14 July 1929) is a French aristocrat, designer, fashion icon, businesswoman,
producer
Producer or producers may refer to:
Occupations
*Producer (agriculture), a farm operator
*A stakeholder of economic production
*Film producer, supervises the making of films
**Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...
and
philanthropist
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...
Jacqueline Bonnin de La Bonninière de Beaumont was born on 14 July 1929 in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
to Jean de Beaumont, comte Bonnin de la Bonninière de Beaumont (1904–2002) and Paule de Rivaud de La Raffinière (1908–1999). On 30 January 1948, Jacqueline married Vicomte Édouard de Ribes, a successful banker who subsequently became comte de Ribes and Officer of the Legion of Honour, Croix de guerre 1939-1945. They had two children, Elizabeth and Jean.
In 1939, when she was 10, de Ribes's parents sent her and her siblings to
In the 1950s and 1960s, before she began designing her own collections, de Ribes employed couture dressmakers to create custom garments for her. In the '70s she began modifying these gowns to create elaborate costumes for fancy-dress balls. In 1955 she employed
Oleg Cassini
Oleg Cassini (11 April 1913 – 17 March 2006) was a fashion designer born to an aristocratic Russian family with maternal Italian ancestry. He came to the United States as a young man after starting as a designer in Rome, and quickly got ...
to make her custom gowns based on muslin patterns de Ribes cut on the floor of her attic. She employed a young and then unknown Valentino to create the sketches that accompanied them.
For twelve years de Ribes created
ready-to-wear
Ready-to-wear (or ''prêt-à-porter''; abbreviated RTW; "off-the-rack" or "off-the-peg" in casual use) is the term for ready-made garments, sold in finished condition in standardized sizes, as distinct from made-to-measure or bespoke clothi ...
collections, using marketing techniques to attract famous and elegant international clients such as
Joan Collins
Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primetime ...
,
Raquel Welch
Jo Raquel Welch ( Tejada; September 5, 1940) is an American actress.
She first won attention for her role in ''Fantastic Voyage'' (1966), after which she won a contract with 20th Century Fox. They lent her contract to the British studio Hammer ...
Cher
Cher (; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industr ...
,
Danielle Steel
Danielle Fernandes Dominique Schuelein-Steel (born August 14, 1947) is an American writer, best known for her romance novels. She is the bestselling author alive and the fourth-bestselling fiction author of all time, with over 800 million ...
Marie-Hélène de Rothschild
Marie-Hélène Naila Stephanie Josina de Rothschild (; November 17, 1927 – March 1, 1996) was a French socialite who became a doyenne of Parisian high-society and was a member of the prominent Rothschild banking family of France.
Early life ...
.
Her first fashion show was held in the home of Yves Saint Laurent. Her creations have been positively received with fashion journalists Hebe Dorsey of the '' International Herald Tribune'' and John Fairchild of ''
Women's Wear Daily
''Women's Wear Daily'' (also known as ''WWD'') is a fashion-industry trade journal often referred to as the "Bible of fashion". Horyn, Cathy"Breaking Fashion News With a Provocative Edge" ''The New York Times''. (August 20, 1999). It provides inf ...
'' singing her praises. De Ribes's collection performed well commercially, and she signed an exclusive three-year contract with Saks Fifth Avenue after her first collection debuted. By 1985, her line was grossing $3 million annually.
In 1986, Japanese cosmetics conglomerate Kanebo acquired a minority stake in the company. De Ribes was unhappy with requests to change the proportions and designs of her collections for Japanese markets.
After being hospitalized for debilitating back pain, de Ribes underwent
hemilaminectomy
A laminotomy is an orthopaedic neurosurgical procedure that removes part of the lamina of a vertebral arch in order to relieve pressure in the vertebral canal. A laminotomy is less invasive than conventional vertebral column surgery techniques, ...
surgery in 1994 which left her unable to walk for three years. During this time she also began to suffer from celiac disease, and due to these health problems was forced to dissolve her company in 1995.
On 14 July 2010, the French President
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012.
Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Sei ...
decorated her as a Chevalier of the
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...
at the Elysée Palace.
From 19 November 2015 to 21 February 2016, the Costume Institute at the
Metropolitan Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in New York City featured "The Art of Style", an exhibition featuring items from de Ribes's wardrobe. The thematic show showed about sixty ensembles of haute couture and ready-to-wear primarily from her personal archive, dating from 1959 to the present. Also included were her creations for fancy-dress balls, as well as numerous photographs and ephemera, recounting the story of how her interest in fashion developed over decades, from childhood "dress-up" to the epitome of international style.
Theatre artistic director and producer of Cuevas Ballet
In 1958, she produced the first play performed at the new Recamier Theatre, ''When five years will be passed'' by
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...
, with
Laurent Terzieff
Laurent Terzieff (27 June 1935, in Toulouse – 2 July 2010, in Paris) was a French actor.
Biography
Terzieff was the son of French ceramistMarquis de Cuevas died in 1961, de Ribes became the new manager of the International Ballet of the Marquis de Cuevas. With sidekick de Larrain as impresario. Together with Raymundo de Larrian, they produced a version of
Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, p ...
’s ''Cinderella'' with
Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born July 31, 1944) is an American actress. She is the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, the first of eight children with his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill. After beginnings in dance and modeling, she turned her attention to ac ...
, daughter of Charlie Chaplin. De Ribes worked 15-hour days during her time managing the ballet, eventually dissolving it three years later due to a lack of resources.
Producer, movies, television
Following this experience, she co-produced the initiative for the first French television channel, a film in three episodes from the book by Luigi Barzini "Italians", published by Gallimard in 1966. It was during this trip that Visconti asked her to play the duchesse de Guermantes in his next film ''In Search ...'' based on the novel by
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous En ...
, she agreed. The film was cancelled after Visconti fell sick. In the 1970s, she focused her efforts on volunteering for show production and co-produced
Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pri ...
television shows to benefit
UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid t ...
.
Active "mécène" of many museums and institutions
De Ribes chaired the Association of Friends of Foreign Orsay Museum during the Monet exhibition in Tokyo in 1996. She supports several museums and foundations in France. She accepted, at the
2007 Biennale
7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube.
As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion, mythology, s ...
Jacqueline de Ribes has supported humanitarian causes throughout the world. De Ribes won the prestigious Women of Achievement Award in 1980, alongside
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her p ...
,
Iris Love
Iris Cornelia Love (August 1, 1933 – April 17, 2020) was an American classical archaeologist, best known for the rediscovery of the Temple of Aphrodite in Knidos.
Early life and education
Love was born in New York to Cornelius Love, a di ...
,
Ann Getty
Ann Getty (née Gilbert, March 11, 1941 – Sept 14, 2020) was an American philanthropist, publisher, paleoanthropologist and socialite. As a fellow of the Leakey Foundation, she worked on archeological digs in Turkey and Ethiopia and was part of ...
Jessie M. Rattley
Jessie Menifield Rattley (May 4, 1929 – March 2, 2001) served as the mayor of Newport News, Virginia from 1986 to 1990, the first woman and first African-American to hold the mayorship.
Life and career
Jessie M. Rattley was born to the late ...
, among others.
Ecology
De Ribes is a pioneer in the field of nature conservation and ecology. As early as 1974 in the Balearic Islands, she advocated for the respect of the natural beauty and for the survival of the species in the area. She also orchestrated an international campaign to safeguard the Mediterranean island of Espalmaor, a migratory bird refuge, successfully fighting for the classification of the island as a nature reserve.
Recognition
* Appeared the first time on the International Best Dressed List in 1956.
* She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1962.
* In 1983, she was voted the "Most Stylish Woman in the World" by '' Town and Country''.
* As a designer, she received the Rodeo Drive Award in 1985.
* In 1999, French designer
Jean-Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier (; born 24 April 1952) is a French haute couture and prêt-à-porter fashion designer. He is described as an "enfant terrible" of the fashion industry and is known for his unconventional designs with motifs including corsets, ...
dedicated his collection to Jacqueline de Ribes.
Family
The Countess de Ribes, was born Jacqueline de Beaumont, she is the daughter of Count Jean de BeaumontJean de Beaumont profile books.google.fr; accessed 30 August 2015. (1904-2002) Commander of the Legion of Honor, vice president of the
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swis ...
, president of the
French Academy of Sports
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
and chairman of Cercle de l'Union interalliée, and his wife, the Countess (née Paule Rivaud de La Raffinière; 1908-1999), a woman of letters.
See also
*
1960s in fashion
In a decade that broke many traditions, adopted new cultures, and launched a new age of social movements, 1960s fashion had a nonconformist but stylish, trendy touch. Around the middle of the decade, new styles started to emerge from small vi ...
Oscar de la Renta
Óscar Arístides Renta Fiallo (22 July 1932 – 20 October 2014), known professionally as Oscar de la Renta, was a Dominican fashion designer. Born in Santo Domingo, he was trained by Cristóbal Balenciaga and Antonio del Castillo. De la Renta ...
*
Diane von Furstenberg
Diane may refer to:
People
* Diane (given name)
Film
* ''Diane'' (1929 film), a German silent film
* ''Diane'' (1956 film), a historical drama film starring Lana Turner
* ''Diane'' (2017 film), a mystery film directed by Michael Mongillo
* '' ...
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*
External links
*
Profile fashionencyclopedia.com; accessed 30 August 2015.
Profile vanityfair.com; accessed 30 August 2015.
* Pinterest Ribes's Fan Pinterest