The French Jacqueline de Ribes, muse of certain great couturiers of the 50s and 60s, then herself a stylist and businesswoman, known for her elegance as “the last queen of Paris”, died in Switzerland at the age of 96.
The French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, in a press release published this Thursday, paid tribute to this woman whom she described as an “icon of French elegance” and who stressed that “he embodied an art of living made of grace, audacity and freedom.”
Dati recalled that Jacqueline de Ribes was born in 1929 into an aristocratic family and that “she knew how to transform this heritage into creative modernity”. At only 19 years old, she married Count Edouard de Ribes, since 1959. She was included in the list of best dressed women in the world and its style made it a favored model for great couturiers such as Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino, who, as the minister recalls, called it “giraffina”.
Encouraged by Yves Saint Laurent, in 1982 created his own brand which he led until 1995, when he gave up the reins for health reasons. In 2015, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York dedicated an exhibition to her for her contribution to art (she built up an important collection with her husband) and to elegance.
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