Elsie de Wolfe, Interior Designer

Have you ever noticed the number of creative people that share their lives with a dog or two?  It is true.  After digging around, we discovered a pack of creative personalities with Canine companions by their side. 

A coincidence?  We’ll let you decide. 

 

The series will focus on the “Top Dogs” in Interior Design; both current and from the pages of history.  We want to tell the stories of the designers, decorators, artists, and the craftsmen who contribute to their success. No story would be complete, of course, without the tales of the dogs that inspire them.

 

If you know of a person, or have a suggestion for an interesting profile; please, drop us a line.

 

 

 

To kick off our series on the Top Dogs of Interior Design, we’ll begin with the woman who started the Interior Design profession as we know it today.  The ambitious, talented, and unconventional woman named “Ella Anderson de Wolfe.”  a.k.a. Elsie de Wolfe or Lady Mendl.

 

Image: Elsie de Wolfe with her  Pekingese “Wee Toi of Downshire”

 

 

Yes, one might debate that women (and men) prior to Elsie de Wolfe had been involved with design and decoration (Candace Wheeler & Edith Wharton come to mind), however…

  

  

Elsie de Wolfe drafted the blueprint for the Interior Design business.

 

 

Follow my reasoning…

 

Elsie de Wolfe created an Interior Design Brand long before  Mad Men  made branding cool.  She had a “logo” or a “trademark” printed on her business cards.

 

 

Elsie’s wolf’s head crest, the Elsie de Wolfe Foundation  

Image: Elsie de Wolfe, A Decorative Life 

 

 

The mark, a wolf’s head, was fitting for the legendary Elsie de Wolfe.  Like the wolf, she was known to be “wild,” was a social animal, and possessed keen survival skills.  Elsie de Wolfe was the leader of the pack in her day. 

 

 

My Dog, Taffy, thinks she’s the leader of the pack.

 

   

Taffy de Wolfe Scottie

 

 

Elsie de Wolfe advertised…

 

 

1921 Advertisement, Image: Interior Design Hound

 

 

 

Elsie de Wolfe understood the power of self promotion.  She had her work photographed & published in magazines of the day.

 

 

 

  The Assembly Room of the Colony Club, Elsie de Wolfe’s first commission.  

Image: “A Club-Women’s Palatial Home,” 1907.  Interior Design Hound

 

 

 

Elsie de Wolfe carefully crafted her stylish image and set the standard for “Good Taste.”  In 1897, Elsie A. de Wolfe wrote an article for Cosmopolitan Magazine titled “The Well-dressed Woman.”

 

 

 

Cosmopolitan  Magazine,1897.   Image: Interior Design Hound

 

Little did she know, 38 years later she would be named one of “The World’s Best Dressed Women” by Parisian dressmakers and “One of the Ten Most Fascinating Women in the World” (October 1935). 

 

Maybe the Parisian fashion houses were unaware that in 1897 Elsie advised:  “No woman who is truly chic is ever a slave to her dressmaker.”

 

 

 

Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe) named the Best Dressed Woman in 1935.  

Image: Interior Design Hound

 

 

Elsie de Wolfe spun her credibility & celebrity into product endorsements giving the public the opportunity to “have just the kind of rooms that Miss de Wolfe would select.”

 

 

Dey’s Karpen Furniture Advertisement, Syracuse Herald Newspaper, 1921.

Image: Interior Design Hound’s Collection

 

 

As the “leading authority in design and decoration, famous for her unerring good taste,” Elsie de Wolfe took advantage of licensing and merchandising opportunities. The Locomobile Company hired Elsie to “select and harmonize” the car’s interior “appointments and upholstery.”

 

 

 

Locomobile Company 1914 Advertisement in House and Garden Magazine.

 Image: Interior Design Hound’s Collection

 

Elsie de Wolfe sold books to masses, so she could live with the classes.  Her first book, The House in Good Taste, was published in 1913 and reproduced in 2004.

 

 

Elsie’s book: Image: Interior Design Hound’s Collection

 

An advertisement for Elsie de Wolfe’s  The House in Good Taste  mentions her emphasis on “suitability, simplicity, and proportion.”  Elsie’s decorating advice was still selling in 1915 at the bargain price of $2.50.

 

 

 

 

 

Elsie de Wolfe’s book advertisement.  Image: Interior Design Hound’s Collection

 

Notice the wolf’s head on the place card & menu on the cover of Elsie de Wolfe’s Recipes For Successful Dining, published in 1934?

 

 

 

Image:  The Peak of Chic

 

Elsie de Wolfe’s autobiography, After All, was published in 1935.

 

 

 

A smiling Elsie de Wolfe with her beloved miniature schnauzer, Dorlé. 

Image: Design Books, NYC

 

Elsie de Wolfe popularized her style (and reputation) by a series of articles titled “Our House Interiors” that ran in Good Housekeeping Magazine. Other articles “written by” Elsie de Wolfe appeared in  House & Garden,  Ladies Home Journal and the Delineator Magazines.

 

The articles, ghostwritten by Ruby Ross Goodnow (Wood) under Elsie’s direction, were transcribed from the decorating lectures Elsie de Wolfe gave at the Colony Club.  (Ruby was paid by the magazines.)

 

 

 Image: House & Garden Magazine in 1915, Interior Design Hound’s Collection

 

If you still need further convincing that Elsie de Wolfe “started it all,” consider that she:  

 

• Secured (and qualified) her clients 
• Closed the sale
• Created original designs & concepts for both residential and commercial projects
• Specified, sourced, & purchased everything needed for her designs
• Hired & sourced the best architects, contractors, upholsterers, artists & craftsmen  
• Managed projects from start to finish
• Operated a Retail Design Showroom in New York, importing her inventory from Europe
• Managed to look très chic while accomplishing all of the above…even in her 80’s!

 

In my attempt to defend Elsie de Wolfe’s position as the Interior Decorator that “started it all,” I’ve run rather long, so this Top Dog of Interior Design will have to be continued…

 

Later, I’ve got to let the Dog Out,