‘One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art’ - Oscar Wilde
One of the most notorious and eccentric celebrities of the early 20th century, panther-parading, snake-wearing, fearless fashionista Marchesa Luisa Casati made her name as a living work of art. Flaunting some of the most ostentatious outfits of her day, she famously accessorized her wardrobe of wonders with a menagerie of animals, harem of gilded servant boys and a decadent portfolio of palaces.
It’s intriguing to imagine how such a flamboyant character might express herself today. But, if Casati were alive now, one could hazard a guess that she’d be most at home thrilling peers and pundits with her inimitable brand of femme fatale as the talk and toast of any red carpet worth strutting down.
Which is what makes it so perfectly fitting, almost a hundred years later, that the designers inspired to take her name have, in such a startlingly short timeframe, made that very vision their reality.
A fashion fairytale for the 21st century, best-buddie design duo from London Marchesa burst onto the international scene with one mission in mind - to single-handedly inject the excitement back into the world of eveningwear.
And at seemingly supernatural speed, what was just a name on a drawing board in the late 1990s, in a few short years became one of the hottest eveningwear brands on the planet. Before long you could barely blink for another ‘Marchesa’ swirling past the paparazzi and popping up in the glossies. With the red carpet as their runway and a steady stream of A-list celebrities as their models, they enthralled the world’s best-dressed, and even fashion’s most fearsome front-row critics were spellbound.
It didn’t hurt, of course, that the two girls fronting the fabulous frocks were every bit as glamorous as the celebrities they were dressing. Nor that they’d had the guts to leap over the pond and hijack the American dream with both hands.
There can’t have been many dedicated followers of fashion for whom the parade of perfect drapery, coquettish cocktail frocks, floor-sweeping meringues and ever-growing A-list clientele wasn’t enough. But for those who still needed convincing that Marchesa could escape the ‘what goes up must come down’ fate of so many other fashion labels, confirmation arrived in the shape of Sandra Bullock at the 2010 Oscars.
Shimmering like the Chrysler building, Bullock stepped up to accept her award in a dress that deserved an Oscar in itself. Her effervescent champagne gown melted seamlessly from its rosette lace bodice to a mermaid skirt conjured from a thousand sparkling beads.
“It’s the dress that makes the woman,” Bullock said modestly on the night. And column inch by column inch, the compliments just kept coming. Until it was clear as Swarovski crystal that the contessas who had taken the countess’s name would be carrying the Casati legacy far into the future.
Busy as always on their next collection, the style sorcerers behind Marchesa, Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig, were hard at it and humble as ever. “All we were looking for was a little shop in Notting Hill Gate to sell a few one-off dresses,” confesses Keren.
Despite their modesty, the pair’s exuberant talents and formidable determination had earned them a place in the fashion hall of fame alongside crème de la crème couturiers and the illustrious likes of Galliano, Armani and Dior. And critics who’d once implied that it was Georgina’s marriage to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein that was responsible for Marchesa’s red-carpeted ride to Hollywood began fading into the wings.
The real story tells a tale of sleeves-rolled-up sensibilities, an ideal symbiosis of talent and an infallible friendship.
“Keren and I met when we were seventeen,” Georgina recalls of their Chelsea Art College days. “Keren was wearing this short, short kilt and knee-high white socks and I thought, ‘Who is that girl? I want to be friends with her.’”
And it wasn’t long after, while holidaying in India, that the girls decided to join forces.
“We were on a beach and just said, ‘Why not do it?’” Georgina remembers. “We felt our talents meshed so well together, with myself as the designer and Keren as the textile designer.
Georgina had three years of costume design at Wimbledon School of Art under her belt and Keren three years of textiles at Brighton Art College. “And setting up a business,” she adds, “is quite a daunting task. Much more fun if you can do it with a friend.”
Busy making other plans, what the tenacious teenagers didn’t know was that, in true Cinderella fashion, they were about to go to a party that would change their lives for ever.
“We often made our own outfits,” remembers Keren, “so we decided to make these dresses out of saris.” Instead of wrapping them traditionally, the determined duo crafted a pair of backless frocks with slits down the side, corseted bodices and beading on the borders. “They were far too complicated to sell, but too beautiful to ignore.”
And, on what turned out to be the very night not to be ignored, their dresses caught the eye of non other than style icon Isabella Blow.
“No one else is doing this,” Blow told the girls that night. “You have to do more of it.”
Inspired by the vote of confidence, they set their sights high and headed straight to Hollywood for awards season. Ten outfits in a suitcase proved to be enough to make their own pop-up shop in Beverly Hills’ Peninsular hotel, and become a stroke of networking genius.
Within days they were rubbing shoulders with the likes of presenter Rachel Zoe and publicist Nanci Ryder, who wasted no time in snapping up the fledgling label and introducing Marchesa to actress Renée Zellweger. And as if by magic, a few weeks later Renée was waltzing into the media spotlight at her London film premiere in a red silk and gold brocade embroidered frock with Marchesa stitched neatly in the back.
“It was the most amazing experience,” remembers Keren. “Waking up the next morning, going to the newsagent, and thinking, ‘There may be a picture…’ And finding Renée on the cover of just about every single newspaper. We were literally screaming in the street.”
What they couldn’t have predicted was the chain reaction to come. “We nearly fell over when we found out,” laughs Georgina, describing the moment she discovered that A-list beauty Cate Blanchett had chosen to wear Marchesa a few months later. “We were stunned.”
Not as stunned, however, as they were when they received a call from New York’s high-fashion heavyweight department store Neiman Marcus, placing an order for their entire collection.
“We didn’t have a collection!” laughs Keren. We literally had to create one in four weeks.”
With their new American clients and Georgina’s boyfriend Harvey Weinstein both in New York, it seemed a logical step to make the daunting leap across the Atlantic. And as the lady in the limelight, it made sense for Georgina to take the role of ambassador for the company.
An exotic apparition of cascading brown hair, utopian blue eyes and storybook smiles, Georgina, seemingly in her sleep, was spell-weaving dresses that had the stars swooning. Miraculously, she was also finding time to date and become engaged to one of Hollywood’s most successful and feared doyens.
But as with so many pictures of perfection, behind the scenes it was a completely different story.
Take Cannes Film Festival, and what looks like the movie premiere fiesta of a lifetime. In the early-evening dress-to-impress hours, one might imagine Georgina languishing in a suite with make-up and hair teams fluttering around her. In reality, you’re more likely to find Chapman and team in action-movie mode, rushing in and out of hotel rooms, chasing yachts and racing up jetties. Their quest? To dress those stragglers with not a stitch to wear in a last-minute fashion crisis between Cannes and the Cap D’Antibes.
After which marathon, she’ll emerge, immaculate as ever, and enthuse about how much she’s enjoying her holiday. Compared to her husband, who famously works around the clock here, it may look like a holiday, but only because super maven Georgina Chapman harbours the enviable talent of making even the impossible seem effortless.
Her beauty, her marriage and her fashion label’s meteoric rise to fame have all been described as enchanted. But on closer examination you’ll find a woman with the energy of a team of huskies, the determination of a packhorse and the tenacity of a terrier. Quite the paradox, when you discover that her own terrier, Rocky, is notorious as one of the laziest and most un-walkable pooches on earth.
But while their canines are kicking back, what makes Marchesa such a force to be reckoned with is their dogged determination and a New York City work ethic that keeps these London girls those all-important few stitches ahead.
Georgina and Keren’s Big Apple dreams have landed them in a lofty studio, high up on the west side of Manhattan Island. It’s a capacious and cheerfully animated place - radios chatter while dogs run under the skirts of semi-draped mannequins being busily bustled through gangways. Incongruously serene, the front of house showroom is a museum of silk, sequins and mirrors shimmering with garments that would make Cinderella weep.
One of Marchesa’s most memorable masterpieces stands center stage, an extravagant jet-black meringue of gilded peacock feathers, its golden quills sweeping through a skirt of glittering plumage.
It’s romantic concepts like these that have earned Marchesa their stripes. It’s hard not to be seduced by a scarlet cascade of roses, those tumbling tiers of feathers and fringing, the vintage accents, delicious embellishments and ever-inspired storyboards.
“I’m like a magpie,” says Georgina. “I just love anything shiny.”
But the double-act have also been careful not to just lust after any old thing that glitters or fall back on gimmicks, understanding instead that longevity comes from honing ones craft.
At the outset, Marchesa were heralded as the new doyennes of drapery. But that wasn’t enough for these Brit girls. Intent on staying one exquisitely heeled step ahead, Marchesa pushed the envelope in every direction it would go. Soon, reviewers were waxing lyrical about architectural prowess that would impress a Pritzker judge, corsetry complications to make the Elizabethans’ toes curl and origami pleating that could challenge the most dextrous of Japanese masters. Not to mention the label’s nigh on superhuman talents with tulle. From frothy cocktail dress to a bridal spectacular, there’s literally nothing this powerhouse can’t do with a roll of ethereal netting.
And with the world demanding more of their creative alchemy, Marchesa were quick to answer the call. Like a spider, speed-spinning its web, they began shooting off sumptuous sidelines quicker than Cinderella’s fairy-godmother.
Bridalwear came first, followed by a sparkling collection of enticingly bejewelled evening bags. Next up, a jewelry collaboration for London-based jewelers Garrard with Brit rock designer Stephen Webster - delicate, mystical, feather-inspired creations, with earrings, rings, collars and pendants dreamt up from Tahitian pearls, precious stones and blackened gold. It was the perfect metaphor: Marchesa had spread their wings and there was no going back.
Then, just when everyone thought a line of shoes may be on its way, the unstoppable dressmakers confounded all couturial expectations. Taking the inaugural leap from fashion house to design firm, Georgina and Keren launched their very own line of dinnerware.
And with a sell-out make-up line in the bag, there’s no telling where the multifaceted Marchesa will journey next. But if they live up to their namesake’s reputation, their future promises more than a few chapters of frocks, thrills and hat-trickery to beguile us with.
Once asked what they would be if they weren’t designers, Georgina replied, ‘Bored and frustrated.”
For the rest of us, we may be lucky enough to find ourselves draped in Marchesa’s ingenious artwork and living by Oscar Wilde’s poetic prescription, or just happily soaking up the spectacle vicariously. Whichever is the case, we can only hope that the story goes on. But if the homage they’ve already paid to their magnificent muse is anything to go by, they’ll never live a bored or frustrated day in their lives.