Want more on these two legendary ladies? Keep reading…

They don’t make them like Marella Agnelli and Loulou de la Falaise anymore. The two were style icons of the highest order, permanent fixtures in fashion’s pantheon of muses. The wife of Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli and a Truman Capote Swan, Agnelli epitomized high-style elegance while de la Falaise — Yves Saint Laurent’s close collaborator and even closer friend, who died in 2011 — was synonymous with devil-may-care bohemian chic and the party life of Seventies Paris. They couldn’t have been more different — or were they? After all, they’re both Taureans born on the same day, 20 years apart. On the occasion of impressive new monographs from Rizzoli on both ladies (Marella Agnelli: The Last Swan and Loulou de la Falaise), we examined the icons side by side, both above and below…

Pedigree
MA: Aristocratic Italian family on her dad’s side and American stock on her mother’s,
by way of Peoria, Illinois.
LF: Father was a French count; mother was famed English model and muse Maxime Birley

Model CV
MA: Hired by Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar photographer Erwin Blumenfeld as a model; prefers being behind the camera and becomes his assistant.
LF: Discovered by Diana Vreeland, models for Vogue; prefers being behind-the-scenes and becomes fashion assistant, then junior editor for Harper’s & Queen magazine.

Bijoux Bias
MA: Gem Palace finery.
LF: Semiprecious stones, crystal, wood, beads — anything chunky, bold and flamboyant.

Fashion Fetish
MA: Shoes
LF: Jewelry and scarves

Party BFF
MA: Truman Capote (until their falling out)
LF: Kenzo Takada (among others)

Silver Screen Counterpart
MA: Isabella Rossellini in the 2006 film Infamous, about Truman Capote.
LF: Léa Seydoux (Saint Laurent, 2014) and Laura Smet (Yves Saint Laurent, 2014)

Surprise Family Member
MA: Egon von Fürstenberg — ex-husband of Diane von Fürstenberg — whose mother Clara is Marella’s sister-in-law.
LF: Silent film star Gloria Swanson, who married de la Falaise’s uncle.