Lucile: one of the first female auto stylists
Edwardian fashion designer Lucile was an innovator in many ways. One of the first couturiers to embrace diffusion lines and branded goods ranges, she is also credited with popularising the catwalk fashion show. Less well-known is her contribution to motoring as one of the earliest female car stylists.
Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, had been active as a dress designer for many years when she became interested in motoring. Her Belle Epoque output was the direct precursor to early 20th century fashions, moving away from a rigid, corseted silhouette to a freer, looser style, usually in sumptuous fabrics.
This commitment to modernity and freedom goes hand in hand with a forward-thinking woman being unafraid of new technologies. She was a regular traveller and famously survived the sinking of both the Titanic and the Lusitania.
Lucile apparently never drove herself but had a number of adventures with a long-suffering and faithful chauffeur. In a Harpers Bazaar advertisement, she admitted that the engine and even the exterior of a car were of no concern to her.
“Les details m’ennui. Leave them to Monsieur Chauffeur.”
Her first major automotive project was a collaboration with the Chalmers motor company (one of the firms that would later become Chrysler) in 1916 and1917. The marque advertised a range of “Lucille” cars in their 6–30 range: “sedan, town car and limousine” according to their promotional copy. The same ad also described how Lucile had “personally selected the upholstery materials for all Chalmers inclosed cars.”
The “quiet but elegant appointments of the interior” are also detailed. The limousine was equipped with concealed trays which stowed in the bodywork “at the touch of an ebony button”, one holding a smoking set and one “milady’s toilette”, including a case for calling cards and a notebook as well as a mirror. Other accessories included clocks, cushions, a wardrobe rail, window curtains, an umbrella holder and crystal bud vases. Much was made of its electric interior dome lights.
The sedan featured a “club chair type” driver’s seat and folding seats for up to six passengers. The side windows and even the door pillar could be folded down into the bodywork and the windscreen lowered. The windows in the town car “may be lowered or adjusted by means of an automatic regulator”.
The Chalmers project was fairly short-lived. The company itself suffered during WWI and was bought out by Maxwell in 1922. The “Lucile” editions were extremely expensive and unlikely to have sold in any number. No photographs of any of them, or evidence that any have survived, are forthcoming.
Duff-Gordon’s fondness for automotive styling persisted after the Chalmers cars were shelved. She wrote at least two articles on the subject in Motor magazine, including one in 1919 with the title “The Philosophy of Motor Vehicle Decoration.” In it, she really let go on the subject in her trademark arch way, claiming that the smart woman should have, or aspire to have, a selection of differently styled cars for different “occasions or moods”, focusing on “colour, graceful lines and little accessories” were the key elements one needed.
The star of the house of Lucile faded considerably after the war and Duff-Gordon herself left in 1922, before it was wound up completely not long after. Its creator died of breast cancer in 1935.
