Like Beatriz Borromeo, Pierre Casiraghi's wife, Jacqueline de Ribes is Countess, but does not believe in titles or live on them.She is an inventor of the style, discoverer of great designs like Valentino Garavani whose designs dressed very soon, and client and muse of Yves Saint Laurent and Jean Dess.

She is the proud survivor of a world that is no longer like ra but that continues to dazzle: that of the costume dances with the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, the three months of skiing per year and that of the thorough tests with ChristianDior.However, the dresses do not tell everything about her.There is something that has to do with the irreverence with which he used clothes, mixing and combining pieces extravagantly, accumulating accessories and even cutting and joining different garments to reflect his mood.From his home in Paris, he continues to fascinate.

From the moment De Ribes entered French society, it was celebrated by its inimitable style.He became a Viscount in 1948, when, at 18, he married Édouard de Ribes, a former soldier who came from a family of ennobled financial.Édouard, who was six years older than Jacqueline, approached her at a lunch at a friend's house in San Juan de Luz.He quickly fell in love with Jacqueline."After that, it followed Paris because I had exams," she said."We met in July and we got married on the next February".

The couple lived in a wing of the nineteenth -century house of Édouard's family, in Paris and, despite their youth, died with bow tuxing and night suit and watched all the rituals of aristocratic life.But Jacqueline also came from a privilege life.His father, Count Jean de Beaumont, had helped build the Rivaud bank, and his mother, Paule, was a writer and intellectual who translated into Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway.

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However, the wealth of the family did not protect Jacqueline of what she describes as a difficult childhood marked by the harsh realities of living in France occupied by the Nazis during World War II."I saw how they took my English governess to a field of work," Ribes recalled.She and her sister grew up with her maternal grandfather, Count Olivier de Rivaud de la Raffinière on the Basque French coast.

The count had Castillo, Yate and racing horses.When he died, Jacqueline and his sister stayed in Hendaya in charge of a nanny, shortly before the German invasion.His parents then decided to house them at some friends until they could return to Paris.But at home he found little affection."I didn't grew up in a family to tell me that it was beautiful, quite the opposite," he said.«I thought I had a very big and very pointed nose.My mother, for years, also told me that I didn't know how to walk ».But Ribes' features - still high cheekbones, dark, thick and bulky hair, their chiseled eyebrows like Marlene Dietrich, and their nose - captivated the world.

Maybe that's why he found comfort, from a young age, in fantasy and fashion theatricality.Remember to have mounted, at age nine, a full -fledged play, with costume included, for his grandfather Olivier de Rivaud de la Raffinière.Other times I wore sheets to make Greek style dresses.Enjoyed with the staging.

Even after his marriage to Édouard and the birth of his children (a daughter, Elisabeth, who was born a year after his wedding, and a son, Jean, who arrived a few years later), from Ribes continued his interest in the arts in the artsscenic.He brought the international production of the prestigious ballet of Marqués de Cuevas."I loved ballet and theater," she says.But Édouard and his family were baffled by their desire to work.They thought I had other things to do instead of spending the nights in a theater watching the rehearsals.But she didn't want to be the typical Countess, taking care of the house and organizing dinners.He never interested him.

Diana Vreeland, then Harper's Bazaar fashion editor, was one of those who recognized the unusual beauty of De Ribes.In 1955, Vreeland asked Richard Avedon to photograph her.One of the images that came out of that session would soon become an icon: in black and white, from Ribes with his hair collected and braided, his long extended neck, his unique profile enhanced by his nose, which Avedon called "perfect".The photo appeared in Avedon's book in 1959, "Observations", to illustrate a Truman Capote essay on what he called the "new swans" of society, along with Gloria Vanderbilt, Babe Paley, Marella Agnelli and her other musesyoung and elegant who emerged in the international social scene.

Ribes was bewildered."I didn't see what I had exceptional," he says."I didn't like myself.I did not understand".His family was not delighted with the photos either.They didn't like the idea that they photographed her.Did not fit with the type of aristocratic education that had to be had to keep the discretion.Although her husband always felt proud.In addition, De Ribes bothered him the description that cape the "swan", women who lived from their husbands and families."It is a beautiful word, and the idea of women like the long -neck swan, sailing quietly on water, is very elegant, but very cynical," he explained.«Swannes of the time of Truman Capote did nothing.They were not working.They didn't fight for life.They were beautiful, and they were beautifully dressed.But I don't think anyone should dream of being a swan following the cape rules ».

In fact, De Ribes did not settle for living and dressing as a muse of high society.In 1982, he started a fashion line with his own name.Over the years, he had experienced with the idea of designing for others and even briefly worked with Oleg Cassini and Emilio Pucci.The business, however, did not last.In the mid -nineties, after a painful back operation was forced to close it.In 2010, he received the Legion of Honor from President Nicolas Sarkozy.In recent years he has shown that beauty goes beyond pure sewing and physicist with its dedication to humanitarian campaigns in favor of women or to protect the Balearic Island as of Backpace, a privileged place of passing migratory birds."If I had lived just taking care of myself, I couldn't bear it," he said once.