Elsa Peretti, the fashion muse and jewellery designer with connections to some of the most glamorous aristocratic families in Europe, has died aged 80.
Born to wealthy parents in Florence, Italy (her father was head of a huge oil and energy company) she was educated in top schools across Europe, before cutting ties with her family and leaving home to pursue a career as a model in Rome. Later, she became a stalwart of the New York social scene in the late 1960s and 1970s, after catching the eye of American fashion designer Halston, who soon recruited her to model his chic jumpsuits.
A regular at the iconic club Studio 54, she was often photographed partying alongside the designer, as well as other scenesters including Andy Warhol, Joe Eula, Bob Colacello, David Geffen and Liza Minnelli. Her signature look was a cropped haircut and oversized glasses - reportedly to hide her heavy nights out.
'Elsa was different from the other models,' Halston was quoted as saying of his friend. 'The others were clothes racks - you'd make them up, fix their hair, and then they'd put their blue jeans back on. But Elsa had style: she made the dress she was modelling her own.'
The two famously had a tempestuous friendship, culminating in a legendary scene in which Peretti threw a fur coat of Halston's into a fire following an argument. It has gone down in fashion lore. Another fight, in the basement at Studio 54, saw her leave New York for good.
During her modelling career, she designed pieces of jewellery for the brands she worked for, eventually landing a job at Tiffany & Co aged just 27. She was credited with democratising high fashion jewellery, making pieces that were more accessible to the working woman of the time. Her most famous designs included the open heart pendant and bone cuff bracelet, pieces that still endure today.
'Elsa was not only a designer but a way of life,' Tiffany & Co said in a statement following the news of her death. 'Elsa explored nature with the acumen of a scientist and the vision of a sculptor.'
In the 1970s, she dated photographer Helmut Newton, who took a famous photograph of her wearing a Playboy Bunny outfit on a roof top in New York, yet her longest relationship was with an Italian contractor named Stefano Magini, who she was with for 23 years (she famously quipped, '10 were great').
She reconciled with her father shortly before his death in 1977, and was given shares in his company API in his will. However, as they were split unevenly between her and her sister Mila, she sued for more. She eventually sold her shares to her family, using the millions to set up a foundation in her father's name, the Nando Peretti Foundation, which gives money to causes as wide-ranging as wildlife conservation to human rights. API is now run by Elsa's nephews, Ferdinando Brachetti Peretti (ex-husband of Princess Mafalda of Hesse) and Ugo Brachetti Peretti (married to Isabella Borromeo, sister of Beatrice Borromeo).
She died at home in Sant Martí Vell, a 16th-century Catalan village just outside Barcelona, where she had lived for several decades. She bought it in 1968, slowly renovating the village building by building, until she owned it all.
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