Treasures of Elsa Schiaparelli

photograph Irving Peng

 “She had beautiful skin and beautiful legs and a beautiful breast,” she said. “She was very voluptuous, my grandmother. She had a very sensual quality about her, too, actually, so she could be soft and she could be quite intimidating.”

PARIS — “I would come in and she would be in her bed, with all these heart-shaped, shocking pink pillows,” the actress Marisa Berenson said about her grandmother Elsa Schiaparelli, the great couturier of the 1930s. “She had beautiful skin and beautiful shoulders and sexy nighties that were all embroidered.

Helena Rubinstein, The Beauty Queen

Helena Rubinstein by Paul Cezar Helleu (1908)

  I was, and remain, fascinated by her enthusiasm, her curiosity, her bravery and her youthfulness. She was afraid of nothing and had endless energy, passion, and intelligence. She was a real heroine and, as she used to say, her life experiences could easily have filled half a dozen lives. She remains a role model and an inspiration not only to businesswomen but women all over the world.

 Unexpected Courage of  Bertha Benz

In early August 1888.  without her husband's knowledge, Bertha Benz, with her sons Richard and Eugen, fourteen and fifteen years old, drove in one of Benz's newly constructed Patent Motorwagen No. 3 automobiles from Mannheim to Pforzheim, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over more than a very short distance.The distance was about 104 km (65 mi). Distances traveled before this historic trip were short, and merely trials with mechanical assistants