RARE “British Fashion Designer\" Edward Molyneux Signed 3X5 Card for Sale

On eBay Now...

RARE “British Fashion Designer\" Edward Molyneux Signed 3X5 Card For Sale

$RARE “British Fashion Designer\$
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

RARE “British Fashion Designer\" Edward Molyneux Signed 3X5 Card:
$69.99

Up for sale "British Fashion Designer" Edward Molyneux Hand Signed 3X5 Card.

ES-7275

Edward Henry Molyneux (/ˈmɔː.lə.nʊks/) 5 September 1891 in Hampstead, London – 23 March 1974 in Monte Carlo) was a leading British fashion designer whose salon in Paris was in operation

from 1919 until 1950. Born in London to Justin Molyneux and Lizzy Kenny, Edward

Molyneux attended Beaumont College, a Roman

Catholic preparatory school. Owing to the death of his father, he dropped out

at age 16 to support himself and his mother while pursuing ambitions as a

painter and illustrator. Molyneux soon found employment as a sketch artist for

the London magazine Smart Set where his drawings of

fashionable women attracted the attention of the celebrated couturier Lucile (in private

life Lady Duff Gordon). She hired him as a sketcher in her London salon in 1910

and by the end of the following year had promoted him to assistant designer at

her Paris branch. Working

for Lucile in London, Paris and New York until the outbreak of World War I, Molyneux joined the British Army's Duke of

Wellington regiment with which he fought in the Battle of Arras, attaining the

rank of captain but losing the sight in one eye. For a time, he worked in the

Admiralty's signals intelligence unit, Room 40. He returned to work for Lucile

after being invalided out of the war but a disagreement with her resulted in

his termination in 1919. Molyneux

opened his own fashion house in Paris at

14 rue Royale in

November 1919 (later, 5 rue Royale), expanding to Monte Carlo in 1925, Cannes in 1927, and London in 1932. The designer quickly

became known for an impeccably refined simplicity. Molyneux was, as historian

Caroline Milbank wrote, "the designer to whom a fashionable woman would

turn if she wanted to be absolutely right without being utterly predictable in

the Twenties and Thirties."[5] Frowning on superfluous decoration,

he regularly dressed European royals, including Princess

Marina, Duchess of Kent. He was also a favorite with trendsetting

actresses like Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Gertrude Lawrence, Margaret Leighton, and Vivien Leigh. Proteges included future couturiers Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain, and he was friends with playwright Noël Coward. During World War II, he moved his firm to London for the duration of

the conflict and returned to Paris in 1946. Retiring in 1950, Molyneux left his

fashion house in the hands of Jacques

Griffe. He resumed designing in 1964, opening Studio Molyneux, a

high quality ready-to-wear line that received mixed reviews. During him as "the Parisian equivalent of Manhattan's Mainbocher, a classicist devoted to the soft look and tailored

line." He retired again in 1969, but Studio Molyneux continued under the

direction of his cousin John Tullis until it closed in 1977. The Molyneux

trademark is owned by French company Parfums Berdoues, and though the fashion component of the firm

remains dormant, the firm still produces scents, such as Captain (1975), Quartz

(1978), Le Chic, Vivre, I Love You and Quartz Pure Red (2008). Molyneux, of

Irish and French Huguenot ancestry, had a complicated

personal life. One of his early relationships was with Foreign Office diplomat Harold Nicolson, who helped finance the opening of the

designer's first Paris salon. Although married to writer Vita Sackville-West,

Nicolson was open with her about his affairs, including his fling with

Molyneux.[8] In 1923 Molyneux married (Jessie)

Muriel Dunsmuir (1890–1951), one of eight daughters of the Hon. James Dunsmuir, Premier of British Columbia. They divorced in 1924.