Mona von Bismarck was so devoted to Cristóbal Balenciaga that when a major chunk of her wardrobe went missing after a train accident, she immediately ordered 150 more pieces.
At the request of WWD, Balenciaga’s current archive team unearthed a yellowed page from that order book for the spring 1966 season, her saleswoman Mademoiselle Margot detailing dresses, pants, coats and suits at prices ranging from 1,500 to 11,000 French francs.
Indeed, the Kentucky-born socialite had such confidence in the Spanish couturier that she even entrusted him to create her clothes for gardening, a passion of hers and a recurrent subject in their personal correspondence.
What’s more, when Balenciaga abruptly closed his fashion house in 1968 at the age of 74, von Bismarck was vacationing in Capri and reportedly did not leave her room for three days. Legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland was staying at von Bismarck’s villa at the time, and reasoned: “For her, it was the end of a certain era.”
Von Bismarck proved how influential French couture was on American style, although she was a trendsetter in her own right.
A 2018 exhibition about her style at the Frazier History Museum in her hometown of Louisville featured 36 Balenciaga garments and hats — and detailed her wider impact.
When the rest of the crowd was wearing LBDs, or little black dresses, von Bismarck was partial to ivory or white eveningwear. She also helped popularize halter-neck tops, asymmetric bias-cut dresses, colorless nail polish, aquamarine and double-strand pearls.
Cristóbal Balenciaga’s evening gown from the 1958 winter couture collection.
Marikel Lahana/Courtesy of Balenciaga
In 1958, she ordered look 77 from Cristóbal Balenciaga’s winter couture collection: a sculptural gown with a plunging back and a past-the-knee hemline that sloped into a peacock train. The dress, with three-quarter sleeves, was realized in Calais-Caudry lace in a vivid violet shade. It will go on display at the Comité Colbert‘s exhibition at The Shed in New York City from May 26 to 31.
Born Mona Strader in 1897, she lived a colorful life with five husbands, including wealthy American entrepreneur Harrison Williams and Count Albrecht Eduard von Bismarck-Schönhausen, with whom she lived at the famed Hôtel Lambert in Paris. She died on July 10, 1983, at age 86.
Her social circle included President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace, Truman Capote, Hubert de Givenchy, Tennessee Williams, Greta Garbo and Cecil Beaton, who called her “one of the symbols of elegance in Western society.”
In 1933, she became the first American to be named the “Best-Dressed Woman in the World” by a jury of couturiers that included Coco Chanel, Madeleine Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin.
She won again in 1934 and 1936 and remained in the top 10 when the list switched hands.
