Gloria Guinness

Gloria Guinness previously Gloria von Fürstenberg, née Rubio y Alatorre (27 August 1912 – 9 November 1980) was a Mexican socialite and fashion and cultural icon, as well as a contributing editor to Harper's Bazaar from 1963 to 1971, considered to be one of the most elegant women of all time. She was portrayed by Cecil Beaton, Slim Aarons, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, etc., designed for by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint-Laurent amongst others, as well as a close friend and inspiration to Truman Capote. Family and childhood Gloria Rubio y Alatorre was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. She was the daughter of José Rafael Rubio y Torres (1880, Michoacán, México – 1916, San Antonio, Texas), a liberal journalist who supported Francisco I. Madero for which he died in exile in the United States, and his wife Maria Luisa Alatorre de la Cueva y Diaz-Ocampo (1882-1961), Zapotlán el Grande, Jalisco), who belonged to a Spanish colonial landowning family from Jalisco who made their fortune in sugar (descendants of conquistador Don Diego de Ochoa-Garibay), partly described by their relative, five times Nobel Prize nominee, Alfonso Reyes Ochoa, in his book Parentalia. Through her maternal family, Gloria was a niece of Gaspar Rubio de Tejada y Benavente (cousin of the celebrated 19th-century art collector Ramón de Errazu y Rubio de Tejada), and of Jesús Colón de Larreátegui y Vallarta (direct descendant of the 1st Duke of Veragua, eldest son of Christopher Columbus). Gloria had two elder siblings: Rafael and Maria Luisa. Gloria's childhood was unstable, mainly because of her father's political persecution during the Mexican Revolution and early death in exile (due to health complications at a health clinic in San Antonio, Texas, when Gloria was five years old). She and her siblings spent most of their childhood at the fincas and haciendas of her mother's relatives, such as the Ochoa-Garibay, Villaseñor-Jasso and Sánchez de Aldana families, with whom the Rubios lived for periods of time. Nevertheless, the Cristero War in Jalisco forced both them and their relatives to leave the countryside for Mexico City, where she eventually met her first husband.