Welcome, curious minds! Today, we’ll peek inside the secluded house of Baroness Pauline de Rothschild, an iconic American fashion designer, translator, and writer. Although it’s not that easy: “Like Greta Garbo, her favorite actress, de Rothschild was an enigma. Peel one layer of identity away and another Pauline disconcertingly appears,” wrote Mitchell Owens for The New York Times in 2000. However, we’ve deliberately dug out each piece we could find, like miners after the gold rush. And, believe us, there is something to see: the baroness was obsessed with details! According to Mitchell Owens, “After all, de Rothschild had nothing but time on her hands and plenty of money for exploring her fantasies (and, oh, yes, no distracting children underfoot.”
You might think that with such a favorable background, it was effortless for de Rothschild to play the designer. Born in a wealthy expatriate American family in Paris, the girl had to bathe in luxury. Alas! Pauline experienced leaps of poverty and luxe. The Potters were prone to frequent separations and romantic entanglements, which ended in their divorce. Perhaps her childhood memories affected her first marriage: four years after she married Charles Carroll Fulton Leser, they broke up. Her husband appeared to be an alcoholic and a homosexual.
Afterward, Pauline had numerous affairs, which didn’t prevent her from building a career. She operated dress shops in Majorca, worked for the couturier Elsa Schiaparelli in London and Paris, and even opened a fashion house in New York City with her friend, Louise Macy, in the early 1940s. Unfortunately, “Macy-Potter” released only a single collection, which appeared to be a disaster. She also worked as an uncredited fashion model for some time.
Paulins’ life flourished after her marriage to Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the owner of French winery Château Mouton Rothschild. Eventually, she had the time to design numerous houses and write articles about fashion and travel, later published in Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. As the baroness’s past was tightly mixed up with the fashion industry, it shaped her taste. Was it reflected in her interior design, or did she dedicate most of her attention to the sophisticated clothing by Balenciaga, Courreges, and Saint Laurent? Let’s find that out.
Welcome to her former flat in Albany, the chic London residential chambers, where Pauline built a refuge of exquisite beauty. She wanted to create a secluded atmosphere to withdraw from a busy life. Quiet privacy—that’s what she aimed for. Only a few intimate friends had the privilege of being invited to her home. No strangers; that’s it. But… we are not strangers, just friendly visitors, are we?
She perceived her London apartment as a safe haven, coming there for rest and peace. According to her husband, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, “Her life was always so busy… This flat was kept for herself, for her own personal satisfaction… This flat is the distillation, the ‘point’ of all the work and thought of her entire life—her house in New York, her ten years with Hattie Carnegie, her apartment in Paris, the new rooms we did together at Mouton.”
For more details, please check our video about Pauline de Rothschild