Daisy Fellowes


Daisy Fellowes was a prominent French socialite, acclaimed beauty, minor novelist and poet, Paris editor of American Harper's Bazaar, fashion icon, and an heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune.

Parents and childhood

She was born in Paris, the only daughter of Isabelle-Blanche Singer and Jean Élie Octave Louis Sévère Amanien Decazes de Glücksberg, 3rd Duke Decazes and Duke of Glücksberg. Her maternal grandfather was Isaac Singer, the American sewing machine pioneer. After her mother's suicide, she and her siblings were largely raised by their maternal aunt, Winnaretta Singer, Princess Edmond de Polignac, a noted patron of the arts, particularly music.

First marriage

Her first husband, whom she married on 10 May 1910 in Paris, was Jean Amédée Marie Anatole de Broglie, Prince de Broglie. He reportedly died of influenza on 20 February 1918 while serving with the French Army in Mascara, Algeria, though malicious observers gossiped that he actually committed suicide as a result of his homosexuality having been exposed.
Their country estate was Compton Beauchamp House in Oxfordshire, where they raised three daughters:
Of her Broglie children, the notoriously caustic Fellowes once said, "The eldest, Emmeline, is like my first husband only a great deal more masculine; the second, Isabelle, is like me without guts; the third, Jacqueline, was the result of a horrible man called Lischmann...."

Second marriage

Her second husband, whom she married on 9 August 1919 in London, was The Hon. Reginald Ailwyn Fellowes, of Donnington Grove. He was a banker, cousin of Winston Churchill and the son of William Fellowes, 2nd Baron de Ramsey.
They had one child, Rosamond Daisy Fellowes. She married her first husband in 1941, Captain James Gladstone, and had one son, James Reginald. She married her second husband in 1953, Tadeusz Maria Wiszniewski ; they had one daughter, Diana Marguerite Mary Wiszniewska.

Affairs

Among Fellowes's lovers was Duff Cooper, the British ambassador to France. She also attempted to seduce Winston Churchill, shortly before marrying his cousin Reginald Fellowes, but failed.

Literary works

Fellowes wrote several novels and at least one epic poem. Her best-known work is Les dimanches de la comtesse de Narbonne. She also wrote the novel Cats in the Isle of Man.

Status as fashion icon

She was known as one of the most daring fashion plates of the 20th century, arguably the most important patron of the surrealist couturier Elsa Schiaparelli. She was also a friend of the jeweller Suzanne Belperron, and she was a longtime customer of jeweller Cartier.

Death

Daisy Fellowes died on 13 December 1962 at her hôtel particulier in Paris at number 69, :fr:Rue de Lille |rue de Lille.