Unusual Life Of The Amazing Lady Mendl

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19130, 26 September 1936, Page 10

Unusual Life Of The Amazing Lady Mendl

What manner of woman is the 83-year-okl Lady Mendl, who has been chosen to redecorate the personal rooms of King Edward VIII at Buckingham Palace? What is she really like, this amazing woman born Elsie tlo Wolfe, who was the first, woman interior decorator in America, the first to put chintz, in draw-ing-rooms, and the tirst to use plaster curtains; the first also to wear short gloves with short sleeves, short skirts, and shorts for sports wear; and whose motto is: "Never Complain"? The answer is to be found in the many legends that have grown around; her name as hostess in the world's capitals, and in her !>ook of memoirs, published in Loudon last year, and entitled, "After All."

Lady Mendl made her first, rtiarriage in 1926, at the age of 70, to Sir Charles Mendl, press attache at the British Embassy in Paris, and the ceremony took place at the British Consulate. Three years later it was discovered that the marriage was invalid because the ceremony had not been performed also on French soil, co it was celebrated again.

This Americart-born woman, who lives in Paris, spends a great, deal of time in New York, and is registered both in Burke's Peerage and in the New York Social Register, claims to have won the title of the world's best dressed woman at a cost of only £3COO a year. She learned to swim when she was nearly 70, and still does cartwheels in the .sunshine of the Puiveria or the garden of her home, the Villa Trianon, in the garden of Verailles.

Ugly Ducklind In Her Family. Lady Mendl says that sho was the ugly duckling in tier family ; her father was a tuberculosis speeiaiist, and the name was originally de Loup. Her mother was sturdy Scotch. f Thc first dc Loups in America were French Huguenots

Unconsciously, perhaps, the young girl, who was in later years to cause such a revolution in furnishing, obtained some of her early ideas about beauty from her father, who had a definite sense ol colour values.

Through the pages of her memoirs run the names of kings and queens, and the most importont people of all nations during the past 60 years. Elsie de Wolfe was presented at the Court of Queen Victoria in the 'eighties.

On her return to New York, Elsie de Wolfe—no one ever seems to have called her Miss de Wolfe—made her first appearance in amateur theatricals at the Tuxedo Club. She did a double-back roll when she was supposed to faint politely on the sofa in a one-act play, "A Cup ot Tea." Curiosity buzzed 'about her, and that acrobatic feat was the beginning of a friendship with Miss Elizabeth Marbury—authors' and playwrights' agent—which lasted for over 40 years. From amateur theatricals Elsie de Wolfe—who is almost stone deaf—became a professional actress, making her debut in 1890 in Sardou's "Thermidor." It was not long before she appeared under her own management, and in these plays she designed her own settings. It was only a short step from stage decors to interior decoration. j.\oced Interior Decorator.

Elsie de Wolfe's first important commission was to decorate the Colony CluD in i\ew 1 on;, where a committee ol women undid overnight wtiai she turn completed during the daytime. It was in mis club thai she lirst used chinu in me drawing-room, aud otner ol" her innovations at the club have found iheir way into homes the world over. For me Ogden Armour home, Elsie ae Wolre put a winter garden in the centre of the house, on which sue worked for three years, it was a trelJised room, with a sofa Bft. long, with covers specially woven of white velvet, striped in a design of green leaves. For Mrs. Henry Prick, she round "the most beautiful bed in the world," at a cost of £2OOO, and for Mrs. Edward Maclean—whose husband was sued tor payment—a bed with a bedspread .which was a Queen Anno period museum piece,, at a cost or £I4OO. But it. was in the homes—four ol them—that she shared with Miss Marbury that Elsie de Wolfe's talents found their perfect expression, and in considering the furnishings of those houses, which were the setting for both brains and beauty, one wonders what she will select for King Edward at Buckingham Palace,

It is certain, however, that there will be plenty of mirrors, for she say r s that "nothing brings the glow of youth to a rejuvenated house like being able to look at itself in the glass from all angles." In all the decors Elsie do W.olfc has done, mirrors have featured largely. A Wonderful Bathroom.

Sir Charles and Lady Mendl now nave also an apartment on the root of the Palace of the Prince Roland Bonaparte in Paris, and in this apartment Lady Mendl has let her ideas run riot in her bathroom. This is her description of it: "The walls are in staff witli a frieze of mirrors, on which are etched in black ail the things one associates with the sea — spouting dolphins, mermaids, islands in the Pacific, palm trees the chariot of Neptune with his plunging horses, Venus arising from the foam. It is fantastic! The lower part of the frieze is treated with conventionalised lines representing the waves of the ocean. The mantelpiece is of mirrors—tho first mirror mantel ever made, an idea which 1 have since repeated. It is quite small, and the frame is decorated in shells, fish, and other water motifs—as is the frame of the mirror above ihe mantel. All the hooks are in the form of dolphins, The faucets tire heads of swans. The bath is set in a niche of minor columns, and there is an engraved mirror screen which, conceals the ugly necessities. "A long low couch covered in zebra skin runs along one side .of the room. The carpet is of white velvet. The electric, lights are in mother-of-pearl, in a design of oyster shells. I'hc curtains are of silver tissue, and there are always white flowers —sometimes great sprays of -white orchids poised like a flight of butterflies across llie mirrored niche; the lirst. lilies in Ihe spring with the intoxication of