O’Keeffe knew she wanted to be an artist from the age of 10. Her official artistic education took place at the Art Institute of Chicago and then the Art Students League in New York, where she was taught in the school of traditional, realist painting. On leaving, however, she soon branched out. Her first exhibition, held in New York, 1916, was of a series of abstract charcoal drawings, and it changed her life. Not only did it mark her card as an artist at the heart of American modernism, but the gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz, though 23 years her senior and married at the time, would soon become her husband. By the mid 1920’s O’Keeffe was one of America’s most well known artists, her large-scale flowers and New York cityscapes already commanding huge commercial value. It is, however, her love affair with New Mexico that she’s probably best known for – both professionally and personally.

O’Keeffe discovered her beloved Santa Fe in 1929. Keen to escape the summers she’d been spending with her husband and his family on Lake George, she first visited that year and never really looked back, endlessly inspired by its raw, desert landscapes, indigenous art and distinctive local adobe architecture. Although Stieglitz would never join her there, she spent months each year touring the country before moving permanently after his death. In 1940, she put her roots down, purchasing the Ghost Ranch, followed by a second house in the village of Abiquiu in 1945. She would live between the two until 1984, when she moved back to Santa Fe where she died in 1986 at the age of 98.

Both houses display the sort of style that has become synonymous with O’Keeffe. Known for what Vogue described as her ‘monastic simplicity by way of the Southwest,’ she was a minimalist and her homes were the same. She fell in love with The Ghost Ranch, a low, unassuming house in the middle of nowhere on a dude ranch, at first sight, saying “as soon as I saw it, I knew I must have it.” For her, the place’s appeal lay in its oneness with nature. As she wrote to the painter Arthur Dove in 1942, “I wish you could see what I see out the window—the earth pink and yellow cliffs to the north—the full pale moon about to go down in an early morning lavender sky . . . pink and purple hills in front and the scrubby fine dull green cedars—and a feeling of much space—It is a very beautiful world.”

That beautiful world was as much a part of the house as it was its setting. Remote in the extreme, powered only by generator and miles from anyone else, it was a place of solace and for solitary living for O’Keeffe. Her corner bedroom featured two glass walls looking out onto the vast expanse of the hills around her and her own ‘private mountain,’ the Cerro Pedernal, although often, she would sleep up on the roof under the stars, before heading out in her Mark 2 Ford for a day painting outside. By night, she would retreat home to her simple, whitewashed walls, basic kitchen and sparse but carefully chosen furniture. Today, it is all kept much the same by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Cultural Centre, who have restored both of her houses to their former glory. Visitors to them can’t help but notice the extraordinary, zen-like yet earthy quality they exude. They are struck by their dreaminess and their otherworldly calm, by a sense that makes them feel at once overawed by and totally at peace with the dramatic countryside they sit in. You could say exactly the same for O’Keeffe’s body of work.

 Photo Courtesy of Getty Images, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Loren’s life wasn’t always dripping in glitz and glamor. Born in 1934, she came into the world on a charity ward for unwed mothers (her engineer father refused to marry her piano teacher mother in a scandalous move for the time.) Taunted for being an illegitimate child, wartime Italy proved a brutal place to grow up, with Loren and her family suffering terrible poverty amidst the constant danger of bombings. Living with several relatives in a small apartment and brought up on strict rations, Sophia was so skinny she was known as Sophia Stuzzicadenti (Sophia toothpick) at school. Her mother Romilda, however, was a great beauty, stopped often in the street for her resemblance to Greta Garbo, and as the young Sophia grew up it became clear her looks were also far from ordinary. Her family encouraged her to enter a beauty contest aged 15, which she did, wearing a dress made by her Grandmother from their living room curtains – and the rest is Italian film history.

The Rajmata Gayatri Devi was never going to live an ordinary life. Born in 1919, she was the daughter of the Prince and Princess of Cooch Behar, a state in eastern India. Known as Ayesha, she was a tomboy – rumor has it she shot her first panther aged 12. She first met her husband before she was even a teenager. The then 21-year-old Maharajah of Jaipur was the country’s most glamorous man, the handsome Prince of Rajasthan’s magical pink city and a famously good polo player. Later, whilst she was at finishing school in London, they became secretly engaged, much to the consternation of both sides’ relatives. He already had two wives, both married for reasons of state, and her family was concerned that the independently minded Princess would be stifled by life in a much more traditional royal household as his third consort. Theirs was a love match, however, and they married in 1940 nonetheless. Together, they ruled Jaipur until it was acceded into the new Dominion of India after independence.  In 1970, her husband died suddenly in England and Ayesha became Rajmata, the Queen Mother of her city.

Maharani Gayatri Devi a polo player herself encourages the game

Gayatri Devi in her office after joining C Rajagopalachari’s Swatantra Party in the 1960s

But Ayesha Jaipur was much more than a consort. She played tennis, drove her own car, rode horses and joined in polo games at a time when royal women were supposed to keep purdah, a custom of segregation, all the while nudging her country towards change as she went. She opened a famous school for girls. She entered politics, winning a seat in India’s parliament in 1962 with what was then the biggest landslide victory ever recorded. Later on, during the political upheaval of Indira Gandhi’s notorious State of Emergency she would be imprisoned for six months.

Gayatri Devi at Rambagh Palace

Gayatri Devi pictured by Cecil Beaton in 1940

Maharani Gayatri Devi with Jacqueline Kennedy in 1962

And all of this took place against a backdrop of impeccable style. Encapsulating a time when all of India’s lavish regal traditions and exoticism blended with the jet set allure of the Hollywood era to bring about one of the most glamorous times in history, Ayesha’s reign was legendary. Named one of the world’s most beautiful women by Vogue, who cited her ‘a dream in saris and jewels,’ she was a vision whether clad in her bright chiffon saris or immaculately cut jodhpurs. The couple’s principle residence was the Rambagh Palace, a cream, sprawling confection of Mughal and Rajput architecture set in majestic gardens on the outskirts of the city. It was there that Cecil Beaton famously photographed the young Maharani in 1943, and there that she entertained everyone from the Queen to Jackie Kennedy. Visitors would find elephants in the gardens and custom Rolls Royce’s on the driveway.

 In her memoir, A Princess Remembers, she recorded, “When the Maharaja first took me to our residence at the Rambagh Palace, I was enchanted. There was a high-ceilinged, airy bedroom all in pink with pale voile curtains, pastel divans and chaises lounges. A large sitting room was filled with objet’s d’art from the Jaipur collection. Small jeweled animals, rose quartz and jade, and curved daggers with white jade hilts and jewels were displayed in glass cabinets. Jade boxes were encrusted with semi-precious stones in floral designs, and heavy crystal bowls were filled with flowers. My maids helped me change quickly into Rajasthani costume in auspicious reds, pinks and oranges, and to put on more jewelry, never forgetting the dozens of ivory bangles.”

However rarefied her life, however, Ayesha was not precious. Her approach was natural, and more than a little tongue in cheek. Once, when asked of her beauty secrets, she replied, “Tell them I drink a bottle of whiskey a day, and I dye my hair black with boot polish.” It is this casual approach to glamour, and its blend with a game changing approach to life that we at Kotur so admire. As champions of women who stand out from the crowd, she is impossible not to revere. She died aged 90 in 2009. The most glamorous Princess of her era, she has become the stuff of legend, a beacon of glamour who strove for modernity in extraordinary time gone by.

Photo Courtesy of Cecil Beaton, c. 1943, telegraph, pinterest, dailymail, wmagazine

Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born in 1903 in rural Yorkshire, England. Contrary to the norms of Edwardian family life, her father was determined to get as an good education for his daughter as he did for his sons, so Hepworth was sent to a decent school before being awarded a scholarship at the Leeds College of Art and moving on from there to London’s prestigious Royal College in 1924. Establishing herself quickly, she worked continuously from then until her death in 1975. Today, her work is found in public places around the world – including a 21 foot sculpture outside UN Headquarters in New York – and is currently subject to a major retrospective at the Tate Modern in London.

From the get go, Hepworth’s world was one entirely consumed by art – in both a personal and professional sense. At Leeds, she met the artist Henry Moore. They enjoyed a friendly rivalry throughout their careers, and, together, would change the face of modern sculpture, redefining it through their instantly recognizable primitive shapes and pierced forms. Hepworth’s first husband John Skeaping was also a well-known British artist, and her second husband was the painter Ben Nicholson.  As a woman in an almost entirely male dominated world, she had to fight her way to prominence, crashing through hitherto ironclad barriers in a way that was nothing short of revolutionary. Also en route, she became a mother to four – giving birth to a son with Skeaping and triplets with Nicholson. Throughout her life, however, she hardly flinched from her mission as an artist. “I found one had to do some work every day, even at midnight, because either you’re professional or you’re not,” she once explained in customary matter of fact style.

It wasn’t until the outbreak of World War 2 that Hepworth first visited the sleepy fishing village of St Ives on the Cornish coast of England, the place forever now associated with her name. Home already to an artistic community drawn there by its romantic landscape and kindred spirits, she made it her home in 1949, living there until her death aged 72 in a fire. Her house and workshop was Trewyn Studio, a collection of higgledy-piggledy whitewashed buildings tucked away in the midst of the town’s winding streets. “Finding Trewyn Studio was sort of magic. Here was a studio, a yard, and garden where I could work in open air and space,” she said of her discovery.

Hepworth’s studio, garden and small main house all served as interlinking and interrelated workshops, with living space came secondary to artistic endeavor in her beloved home. By the end of her life, she kept just one room to live in, whilst the rest was dedicated to her work. Preserved as a museum and kept pretty much as it was during her lifetime, visitors to Trewyn Studio today find her it brimming with tools, huge slabs of stones still waiting to be moulded in the corners, her artists’ smocks still hanging expectantly on the doors. The focal point is her garden – a real source of pride for Hepworth, it acted as a sort of living room furnished with all her own sculptures and exotic plants. Today, it holds some of her most famous works, pieces that overawe visitors with their stature and beauty.  Much like the place she called home and will forever be associated with, Hepworth’s work and life are as starkly beautiful, groundbreaking and impressive to encounter today as they were in her trailblazing days back then.

Photo Courtesy of yoursculpture.wordpress.com, barbarahepworth.org, bowness Hepworth estate, mondo-blogo.blogspot.com, Tate Modern

Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret Rose was born in 1930, four years after her sister. Their royal upbringing took a turn for the more public when her Uncle King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, making Elizabeth and Margaret first and second in line to the throne after their father, the newly anointed King George VI. Stories from their childhood often refer to the younger Princess as mischievous and spirited. The King is said to have described Elizabeth as his pride and Margaret as his joy. With a tiny waist and brilliant blue eyes, Margaret was photographed by Cecil Beaton wearing Dior couture in 1955, a celebrity of her time. Aged 22 she fell in love with Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorcé 16 years her senior. He proposed but she was forced to decline – it had been decided that the Queen’s sister simply could not marry a divorcé. She went on to marry photographer Antony Armstrong Jones, later created Lord Snowden in a Norman Hartnell dress and the first televised Royal Wedding in 1960. Together, they were inordinately glamorous.

With him, the debonair photographer and her, the beautiful princess swathed in fur and diamonds, they lived a gilded life.  Their Kensington Palace apartment was filled with staff, their circle with aristocrats and celebrities. Golden it may have been, however, happy it was not. They had two children but their marriage was plagued by rumours of affairs and they divorced in 1978. At the time, the royal separation was seen as scandalous.

The Princess and her new husband were travelling on the Royal Yacht Britannia around the Caribbean on their honeymoon when invited ashore Mustique by her friend Lord Glenconner who had bought the island for £45,000 the year before. He later wrote in his memoirs that he said, “Ma’am, would you like something from Asprey in a box as a wedding present, or perhaps you would like this piece of land?” She waved her arm and said: “Oh, the land!” Armstrong Jones’s uncle the stage designer Oliver Messel was charged with designing the house built for her, named Les Jolie Eaux meaning ‘beautiful waters.’ The five-bedroom open plan villa featured the Greek columns and white façade identified with Messel’s famous Caribbean Colonial style. Built high on the cliffs around it’s own infinity pool, all balconies, shutters, flowery chintzes and palm fronded gardens, it was the very epitomy of 1970’s tropical glamour.

Les Jolie Eaux

Princess Margaret photographed on mustique by Alpha  

Lord Glenconner with life-long friend Princess Margaret

Lord Snowden never liked the island much, dubbing it ‘Mustake,’ and so it became Prince Margaret’s escape. Most of the affairs she was rumored to have played out on Mustique, by then a playground for the rich and famous. The images from that time have become iconic – pictures of Princess Margaret lounging on her sofa or balcony in a colorful kaftan with matching headscarf, her trusty cigarette holder never far from hand. There were legendary stories of parties, skinny-dipping and glamorous lunchtime picnics. Lord Glenconner’s 50^th birthday, with it’s golden theme and guests including Mick and Bianca Jagger was the crowning moment of island’s glory. Resplendent in a Carl Toms kaftan and turban, Princess Margaret is pictured at it surrounded by locals wearing nothing but a coconut shell to hide their modesty. She was a woman – and hers was the sort of life – that we at Kotur love to celebrate. One that’s lived with a cheeky smirk, plenty of glamour and just enough give-a-damn attitude to break the rules now and again. She may have been born to a life of strict social codes, but it seems her joie de vivre simply demanded that she didn’t take too much notice of them. And for that, if nothing else, we consider her really rather fabulous.

Princess Margaret in her Kaftan and turban at Glenconner’s birthday party – photographed by Patrick Lichfield
 Princess Margaret on the beach in Mustique – photographed by Lord Lichfield

In the end, Princess Margaret’s lifestyle caught up with her. A lifetime smoker, she had the first of several strokes whilst on her beloved Mustique in 1998 and died in London in 2002. To this day, she is considered synonymous with the island’s carefree and aristocratic sort of glamour, with a world of parties and fast sets and privileged naughtiness. A rebel Princess in legend as in life, it turns out.

Les Jolie Eaux on Mustique Island

Photo Courtesy of Patrick Litchfield, Alpha, AFP/Getty Images, mustique-island.com

For Peggy (her real name was Marguerite,) it all started in New York in 1898 as the daughter of Ben Guggenheim and an instant heiress (her uncle Solomon founded the Guggenheim museum.) Her father died in the sinking of the Titanic, leaving Peggy a fortune that may have been small by Guggenheim standards but that provided an income large enough to set her on course for life as a patron. Her interest in the world of artists and intellectuals was piqued by a stint working at the avant-garde New York bookshop Sunwise Turn and confirmed by a trip to Paris, where she married her first husband the artist and writer Laurence Vail in 1922. Theirs was a tumultuous marriage that produced two children and saw her leaving him in 1928, but he introduced her to Europe’s bohemian set of artists and writers, stoking her knowledge of and appetite for the art world and a passion from which she never looked back.

Peggy’s first gallery opened in London’s Cork Street in 1938, exhibiting Jean Cocteau, Vasily Kandinsky and Henry Moore whilst she set about amassing her own collection. One of her most famous spending sprees came after the outbreak of World War II when she resolved to buy, “a picture a day,” including works by Miro, Magritte, Dali, Braque and Picasso and Mondrian. In 1941, she left occupied France for Manhattan, opening a museum-gallery in New York, exhibiting artists and promoting unknowns – among them Jackson Pollock. She gave him his first solo show, supported him financially and commissioned his largest painting, a Mural. She later wrote that her discovery of him was, “by far the most honourable achievement,” of her life.

Born in 1910, Bunny’s first husband was Stacy Barcroft Lloyd Jr, but it was when married to banking heir Paul Mellon that she set about creating her own beautifully crafted world. A self taught gardener and avid horticulturalist, the gardens at the Mellons’ 4,000 acre home Oak Springs in Virginia were a testament to her talents and a fabled idyll of vegetable gardens and topiary, of arbors and trompe l’oeil adorned greenhouses. She designed gardens for her friends Hubert de Givenchy and Jackie Kennedy, who commissioned her to redesign the Rose Garden at The White House. She was involved in the revival of Louis XIV’s kitchen garden at Versailles and would later dedicate herself to building up her Edward Larrabee Barnes designed Oak Springs Garden Memorial Library, a legacy that survives her and now houses over 13,000 of her beloved horticultural books.

It was, however, only after her death at 103 earlier this year that the full glory of her belongings became evident. Notoriously private, there were few visitors to the Mellons’ various homes around the world, and whilst they were known as avid art collectors – Bunny once told a Vanity Fair journalist of an afternoon in the 1950s when she wandered by chance into Rothko’s Manhattan studio and bought 13 of his pictures – the extent of their collection has only now come to light. On November 10^th, Sotheby’s will host an auction of her possessions including pieces by Rothko, Braque, Giacometti and many others alongside jewelry, mementoes, porcelain and furniture.

Pictures accompanying the sale show vignettes from her various homes, collections of eclectic pictures, keepsakes and ornaments all stylishly cluttered around her houses. According to the New York Times, she used to have a Van Gogh hanging above her bathtub. A dining room full of mismatched cane chairs, a collection of 18^th Century Botanical wares, cosy cushion scattered sofas placed beneath huge Rothko masterpieces and unframed artworks by Degas and Cézanne that rested propped up against walls all prove unexpected treasures. Bunny Mellon favored a style of decorating that was unashamedly luxurious but decidedly unpretentious and an approach to collecting that was based purely on what she loved. It was a way of living that made the most of the access and funds that afforded her the best of the very, very best, whilst still espousing a relaxed sophistication. And it all bears the hallmarks of truly timeless and extremely good taste.

Photos courtesy of Conde Nast Archive, NYTimes.com, TMagazine.com and ArchitecturalDigest.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/arts/design/bunny-mellon-good-taste-is-a-boon-to-sothebys.html#

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/decor/2014-06/bunny-mellon-garden-interior-design-article

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/bunny-mellon-jewelry-verdura-sothebys/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

When it comes the style mantra ‘More is More,’ there is almost no one that embodies it more completely than Iris Apfel. The 92 year old fashion icon is the living proof of the brilliance of eccentric excess. Known for her signature oversized glasses and wonderful wardrobe, she is quite simply unmissable.

Brought to the world’s attention following the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2005 exhibition of her extraordinary vintage packed and opulent wardrobe entitled “Rara Avis’ meaning ‘Rare Bird,’ Apfel has since become a global fashion phenomenon. She started out, however, as an Interior Designer working in post war America where she was hired for her eclectic style and vision. From the get go she was known for her maximalist approach as well as her eye for the extraordinary, be that a flea market find or a rare vintage textile. Her love of the latter led her to found Old World Weavers with her husband Carl, a company that reproduced wonderful fabrics from Europe as well as an antiques business that saw them scouring the continent for finds to bring back and sell in their New York showroom.  Today, she has her own jewelry line.

A reflection of her own taste and extremely individual style, Apfel lives in a three bedroomed apartment on Park Avenue that quite simply could not be anybody else’s. Dripping in Chinoiserie, Italian baroque furniture, Louis XVI inspired interiors, costume jewelry, hand printed textiles and knick knacks picked up over a lifetime of magpie like shopping all over the world, it bursts with the same sort of eccentric glamour as it’s owner. A hallway festooned with ancient Chinese textiles, paintings of dogs, a baroque Italian console and towers of books leads to a French inspired, bleach oak paneled living room stuffed with opulent textiles. You’ll find a Louis XVI daybed in the library, a spare room stacked full of racks of her vintage clothes, rooms filled with costume jewelry draped over surfaces and antiques, paisley throws and more interesting fabric than the eye knows what do with.

Apfel has laughingly referred to herself as the ‘Geriatric Starlet.’ Looking at her apartment, it is abundantly clear however that the inspiration she provides crosses every boundary of age. She is a beacon of the brilliance of eccentricity, living embodiment of the triumph of individual style and the very best kind of Rare Bird for it indeed.

Picture 1from Daily Candy – read their interview with her here http://www.dailycandy.com/everywhere/flipbook/156919/Iris-Apfel-Interview

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/celebrity-homes/2011/iris-apfel-manhattan-apartment-article

By Fiona Kotur

Whilst 1040 Fifth Avenue might not have been anything like as large as the living quarters she had been afforded in the White House, visitors to it noted the same design touches, it’s old world feel, and it’s lack of pretension and it’s cosiness. During Sotheby’s famous sale of it’s contents in 1996, the world was granted a glimpse inside its doors. And, as Carolina Herrera once said of it in an interview in Vanity Fair, “”It was an apartment of someone who comes from an old family. Not a showplace full of marble like the homes of all these new people. It was her taste.”

That taste preferred the personal over the grand. A fan of print and colour, Jackie liked to head to a firm called Design Works for her prints in the early 1970′s. Red and gold drapes coloured the dining room, whilst chintzes covered the sofas, and bold, graphic prints were found on tablecloths.  A fan of chinoiserie, she decorated with laquer cabinets, blue and white chinoiserie lamps and even had a screen festooned in cherry blossom. There was an easel she liked to draw at in the living room, books scattered throughout the apartment, pictures of horses and dogs on the walls and the same kitchen existed virtually unchanged for the thirty odd years she lived there. 1040 5th Avenue was a home – not a style statement. Much like with her approach to fashion, it was the result of an uncompromising approach to her very own and very personal aesthetic – and no one else’s.  Click through our gallery above for pictures of it here.

Pictures:

Painting by Aaron Shikler of Jackie Kennedy with John and Caroline in the Living room at 1040 Fifth Avenue

The entrance to 1040 Fifth Avenue

Jackie, John and Caroline outside 1040 Fifth Avenue

Ron Gallela’s shot of Jackie outside her apartment

Interiors pictures from the Sotheby’s sale of the apartment contents, 1996

Chanel HQ has kept their founder’s apartment exactly as it was when she died in 1971 – save for a couple of key additions: a silk chaise she was famously photographed in by Horst, and a simple, leather covered chair that she conducted her fittings from. Every morning, she would depart from the Ritz for the short walk ‘home,’ leaving just enough time for the door porter at the hotel to call ahead to the store, giving them notice to spritz Rue Cambon’s famous mirror panelled spiral staircase with Chanel No 5 before the boss arrived. Her private rooms were a mixture of Oriental and French chic – full of modern artifacts and vintage chinese screens, ahead of their time touches and 18th century antiques. Stylish to a T, like the lady herself.

Incredibly valuable Chinese screens adorn the walls of the living and dining areas, hiding the doors she was said not to like. Many featured camellias, Coco’s favourite flower that she made a Chanel motif.  In the main living room, a custom made sofa in suede was an extremely modern addition to a 1930′s apartment. On it, Mademoiselle Chanel scattered quilted suede cushions – a precursor of her iconic quilted bags to come in 1955. Dripping in crystals, the room is also reflective of her superstitious spirit. Coco was convinced of crystal’s healing powers – hence the crystal balls she collected and specially commissioned crystal Chandelier featuring arms made out of her signature Number 5s (legend has it, it was a fortune teller who told her it was to be her lucky number.) She also collected lions, in deference to her Leo starsign, littering the apartment with gold statuettes featuring the big cats.

Mademoiselle’s apartment was designed as part of the store – private, for sure, but positioned so she knew what was always going on. The signature sweeping spiral staircase stretching above and below allowed for her to stand out of sight and still view customers reactions to her collections down below, the mirrored walls gave an art deco elegance to the atelier that almost can’t be beaten. It was Chanel herself who said “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” As it turns out, it was a motto she literally lived by.