Elsie de Wolfe

Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Mendl ( Ella Anderson de Wolfe; December 20, c. 1859 – July 12, 1950) was an American actress who became a very prominent interior designer and author. Born in New York City, de Wolfe was acutely sensitive to her surroundings from her earliest years and became one of the first female interior decorators, replacing dark and ornate Victorian decor with lighter, simpler styles and uncluttered room layouts. Her 1926 marriage to English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl was seen as a marriage of convenience, although she was proud to be called Lady Mendl. Since 1892, de Wolfe had been living openly in a lesbian relationship with Elisabeth Marbury, with whom she lived in New York and Paris. Lady Mendl was a prominent social figure, and she entertained in the most distinguished circles. Career According to The New Yorker, "Interior design as a profession was invented by Elsie de Wolfe". She was certainly the most famous name in the field until the 1930s, but the profession of interior decorator/designer was recognized as a promising one as early as 1900, five years before she received her first official commission, the Colony Club in New York. During her married life (from 1926 until her death in 1950), the press often referred to her as Lady Mendl.