Fahion History 101: Marchesa Luisa Casati

FASHION and HISTORY


Eccentric, controversial, fashionable, some might even call her insane. Rightfully so if one wanted to be known as a living work of art. Marchesa Luisa Casati was one of Europe's most controversial women from the last century.

In 1881 she was born to a life of luxury in Milan to wealthy cotton manufacturer Alberto Amman and his wife Luisa Adele Rosa Maria Amma. Marchesa was orphaned as a teenager, her parents dying just two years apart, and this left her and a sole sister to be reportedly the wealthiest women in Italy.

Marchesa was muse to many writers. She delighted and also shocked society with her peculiar ways: she had evening walks naked under her fur coats with pet cheetahs on diamond-studded leases, wore live snakes as jewelry (she checked in the Ritz in Paris with her pet boa which managed to escape), and nude servants attended to her.

Seeking immortality through art she commissioned many artists to create her image through paintings, sketches and sculptors. Marchesa Casati is a true fashion icon, one that will move through centuries and not just seasons. She is next only to the likes of the Virgin Mary and Cleopatra in the rampancy of artistic depictions.

Sadly she died poor, mainly from all the debts she acquired in her lavish lifestyle. She had after all traveled throughout Europe amassing castles, hosted the most lavish parties and collected a menagerie of pets (her greyhounds also wore diamonds). Although penniless in London where she had relocated, Marchesa Casati was seen rummaging through dumpsters in search of feathers to adorn her head. Poverty was not allowed to kill her style.

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Imagine the paparazzi/tabloid frenzy she would caused had she lived in our time! The Spears, Hiltons and Lohans of this world would fade as magazine side columns next to this cover-worthy femme fatal. The 'It' girls of today should learn a thing or two from Marchesa Luisa Casaiti. Bring on artistic eccentricities if one must be controversial. That way you go down on the pages of historical books and not just next week's bathroom read.