The "It" Girls: Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, the Couturiere "Lucile," and Elinor Glyn, Romantic Novelist

Etherington-Smith & Pilcher's dual biography of celebrated sisters Lady Duff Gordon, otherwise known as the couturiere "Lucile," and romance novelist Elinor Glyn, while at times gossipy and unreliabe as to dates, is a delightful foray into the worlds of Edwardian high society, theatre, and fashion. As "Madame Lucile" of London, Paris, and New York, Lady Duff Gordon was a genuine design trailblazer. Dressing Royalty and stage and film stars galore, Lucile popularized sexy lingerie, produced the first runway style shows, costumed the London premier of "The Merry Widow" as well as Broadway's "Ziegfeld Follies," and survived the "Titanic" disaster, although not without controversy for it was alleged in the press that she and her husband had commandeered an underfilled lifeboat and bribed the sailors not to return to rescue others. Lucile's younger sister Elinor Glyn wrote witty & rather dainty love stories until her scandalous book "Three Weeks," detailing an extra-marital affair between an exotic seductress and an unwitting younger man, established her notoriety. In the 1920s Lucile's flowing tea gowns and extravagant evening dresses began to pall on jazz-minded flappers and her career faltered. By contrast, Elinor Glyn's finest moment came in the 1920s when, transplanted to Hollywood as a screen writer/producer for MGM and Paramount studios, she took Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino under her wing and pronounced Clara Bow the ideal possessor of "it," the author's now legendary euphemism for "sex appeal." Both women emerge from the narrative as not only inspiring but almost outrageously determined and ambitious for their time and their myriad successes, together with the sisters' immense sense of style and glamor, are amusing to read about. Unfortunately this account also portrays them as terribly jaded and unlikeable. The story of these high-spirited, fascinating sisters is well worth the read but a truly in-depth, sympathetic study would have been more satisfying.