Solange d'Ayen

Solange Marie Christine Louise de Labriffe, Duchess of Ayen (5 April 1898 – 3 November 1976),^[2] known professionally as Solange d'Ayen,^[4] Solange de Noailles, and Solange de Labriffe, was a French noblewoman and journalist, known for being the fashion editor of French Vogue magazine from the 1920s until the 1940s. She also wrote for American Vogue. She was born into the House of Labriffe [fr] and was named Duchess of Ayen by marrying Jean Maurice Paul Jules de Noailles, the 6th Duke of Ayen in 1919, with whom she had two children.

Solange d'Ayen
Duchess of Ayen
Full name	Solange Marie Christine Louise de Labriffe[1][2]
Other names	Solange de Labriffe[1][2] Solange de Noailles[3]
Born	(1898-04-05)5 April 1898[2] Amiens, France[2]
Died	3 November 1976(1976-11-03) (aged 78)[2] Paris, France[2]
Buried	Château de Maintenon
Noble family	Labriffe [fr] (by birth) Noailles (by marriage)
Spouse(s)	Jean Maurice Paul Jules de Noailles ​ ​ (m. 1919; died 1945)​
Issue	Geneviève de Noailles Adrien Maurice de Noailles
Father	Camille de Labriffe
Mother	Anne-Marie de Vassart d'Hozier
Occupation	Journalist fashion editor

She survived two years of imprisonment under the Nazi regime in occupied France after being arrested by the Nazis in 1942. She died in Paris on 3 November 1976 at the age of 78.

Early life

Solange Marie Christine Louise de Labriffe was born in Amiens, in northern France, on 5 April 1898.^[2] Born into the House of Labriffe, her father was Camille, Count of Labriffe, and her mother was Countess Anne-Marie Vassart d'Hozier.^[5] She had an older sister, Marie de Labriffe (1893–1985).^[6]

Career

In the late 1920s,^[7][8] Solange started working as a fashion consultant^[9][10] and later became the fashion editor^[4] of French Vogue magazine under the name Solange de Noailles.^[3][7] By October 1928, she was signing her articles as Solange d'Ayen.^[11] She also wrote for American Vogue.^{[11][4][12][13]} Irish journalist Carmel Snow, who was working for Vogue at that time, said of Solange: "she was the person I most wanted at that time to fashion myself on".^[10] Solange was well-connected in the Paris social circle known as "le tout Paris" and introduced Snow to several members of the Paris elite.^[10]

In 1935, she helped Vogue editor-in-chief Edna Woolman Chase persuade French painter Christian Bérard – a close friend of hers – to work for the magazine as a fashion illustrator.^[14]

She worked as a fashion editor of French Vogue until the 1940s.^[4] In 1949, she was managing the fashion house of Robert Piguet.^[15]

In 1951, she became an editor of Maison & Jardin magazine.^[16]

Towards the end of her life, she was known as Solange de Labriffe.^[2]

Personal life

Solange married Jean Maurice Paul Jules de Noailles, the 6th Duke of Ayen, on 16 June 1919 and was named Duchess of Ayen.^[5] They lived at the Château de Maintenon^[17][18] and had two children; a daughter, Geneviève Hélène Anne Marie Yolande de Noailles (1921–1998), and a son, Adrien Maurice Edmond Marie Camille de Noailles (1925–1944), a soldier who died in Rupt-sur-Moselle during World War II at the age of 19.^[19][20]

She was a close friend of several artists such as French fashion designer Coco Chanel,^[21] Swiss fashion designer Robert Piguet,^[22] French painter Christian Bérard,^[14] and American photographer Lee Miller.^[23][24]

Her husband, Jean de Noailles, was a member of the French Resistance during World War II and was arrested by the Gestapo on 22 January 1942, as a result of an anonymous denunciation.^[25][26] He died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 14 April 1945,^[5] a few days before the end of the war.^[26] Solange was also arrested by the Nazis in 1942 and sent to the Fresnes Prison, while her family and friends such as Miller were unaware of what had happened to her.^[24] Solange was said to be "a shadow of herself" when Miller found her after the war.^[24][27] In 1952, the Paris military court sentenced Suzanne Provost, a Gestapo collaborator accused of having denounced Jean de Noailles, to 20 years of imprisonment.^[25] In 1954, Solange formally accused SS officer Helmut Knochen of having kidnapped her husband.^[28] Knochen was sentenced to death by a Parisian military tribunal in 1954, but was later pardoned by President de Gaulle and released in 1962.^[29]

French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, who had met Solange while he was working as an apprentice of Robert Piguet, described her as a "great beauty", who had "classic taste", and said that she always wore black because she had lost her husband and son in the war.^[22]

Death

Solange died in Paris at the age of 78 on 3 November 1976.^[2] She was buried at the Château de Maintenon in France.^[30]

In popular culture

In 1939, French composer Francis Poulenc dedicated his song "Fleurs" to Solange.^[31][32]

In 2023, Solange was portrayed by French actress Marion Cotillard in the Lee Miller biopic Lee, directed by American filmmaker Ellen Kuras.^[24][33]

See also

• Duke of Ayen

Further reading

• Snow, Carmel; Aswell, Mary Louise (1 January 1962). The World of Carmel Snow. McGraw-Hill. pp. 55, 108, 148. OCLC 547124.
• Lawford, Valentine (1984). Horst: His Work and His World. Knopf. pp. 54, 152, 193. ISBN 978-0394521718.
• Penrose, Antony (1985). The Lives of Lee Miller. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-03-005833-2.
• Pochna, Marie-France (1996). Christian Dior: The Man who Made the World Look New. Arcade Publishing. p. 107. ISBN 978-1559703406.
• Rowlands, Penelope (12 November 2008). A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life In Fashion, Art, and Letters. Atria Books. ISBN 9780743480451.
• Burke, Carolyn (6 October 2010). Lee Miller: A Life. Knopf. pp. 100, 231. ISBN 9780375401473.
• Simon, Linda (October 2011). Coco Chanel. Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781861898593.
• Hilditch, Lynn (2018). Lee Miller, Photography, Surrealism and the Second World War: From Vogue to Dachau. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781527500174.
• Ronald, Susan (3 September 2019). Condé Nast: The Man and His Empire. St. Martin's Publishing Group. ISBN 9781250180025.
• Taylor, Lou; McLoughlin, Marie (9 January 2020). Paris Fashion and World War Two: Global Diffusion and Nazi Control. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781350000261.
• Othen, Christopher (14 July 2020). The King of Nazi Paris: Henri Lafont and the Gangsters of the French Gestapo. Biteback Publishing. pp. 82–83. ISBN 978-1785906596.
• Miralles, Nina-Sophia (18 March 2021). Glossy: The Inside Story of Vogue. Quercus. ISBN 9781529402773.
• Picardie, Justine (7 September 2021). Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture. Faber and Faber. p. 199. ISBN 9780374210359.