MARCHESA

D’Annunzio’s muse on Hollywood red carpet.

She was Martinetti, Beaton and Cocteau’s inspiration.

D’Annunzio adored her. “The only woman I heard him talking about with reverence” according to the biographer Andrè Germani.

Boldini and Man Ray portrayed her with her enigmatic smile of Belle Èpoque Madonna, wrapped up in midnight blue velvet, vermillion red lips, the kajal around those eyes that could ipnotize you.

John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld sent her love letters in the form of their haute couture collections (that ended up, in the case of the English designer, at the Metropolitan museum).

She has just made an appearance – in disguise-on the most exclusive red carpet in

Hollywood.

Marchesa Luisa Casati Stampa (1881-1957) was smiling during last Sunday’s Oscars, thanks to the New York fashion house (funded in 2004) that surprisingly dressed three stars for the occasion-Best Actress Sandra Bullock and nominees Gaborey Sidibe and Vera Farmiga.

Since that fashion house was named “Marchesa” by the designers Georgina Chapman e Karen Crag, just in honour of the Italian noble woman.

An icon across the centuries, as it says on her gravestone, in Shakespeare’s words from Antony and Cleopatra:

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety”.