The couple quickly became the darling of Parisian society, the good taste of Princess Natalia being particularly appreciated. Famous for her gray eyes and her hair with a pale blonde, she appears in magazines such as Vogueand poses for personalities like Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst and André Durst. Despite their common interest in the arts, the platonic marriage between Natalia and Lucien Lelong is not happy, which leads him to start a link with Serge Lifar. Their story ends when Natalia begins a new passionate (but platonic) relationship with the avant-garde artist Jean Cocteau, who ended in 1932.
Natalia was a very popular model, a real muse for fashion designers; Here she was photographed just before her marriage to Jack Wilson in 1935.
Ullstein picture Dtl./Getty Images
In the spring of 1933, Natalia began a career in cinema, playing in European films before settling in New York. In 1937, she met Jack Wilson, producer and theater director, whom she married after divorced Lucien Lelong. Like the latter, Jack Wilson is known for his homosexuality, and it is once again a marriage of convenience. Natalia nevertheless admires her husband’s intelligence and humor, not to mention her name and her social skills, which are useful to her business.
The couple travels all the more since it has a cottage in Jamaica, a house in Connecticut and an apartment in Manhattan. At this stage, Natalia is a well -known worldly. She officiates in public relations for the Haute Couture Mainbocher and frequent Elsa Maxwell, Fulco di Verdura or Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In 1941, she was naturalized American. During the 1950s, Jack Wilson’s career declined; Confined in a wheelchair and suffering from dementia, he pushed his last breath in 1961.
Natalia and Jack Wilson liked to receive; In 1950, the photographer Slim Aarons immortalized them on their Jamaican property alongside friends, including Noël Coward and Lady Rothermere.
-Slim Aarons/Getty Images
After the death of her husband, Natalia withdrew from society. She has spent her last two decades in her Manhattan apartment, watching television and making crosswords, only accompanied by her pets. She suffers from diabetes and begins to lose her sight, which isolates her even more. In 1981, she fell in her bathroom and fractured her neck; A few days later, she died in the hospital.
Despite this sad end, Princess Natalia remains one of the most enigmatic personalities of the twentieth century, close to Sommies who admired her for her good taste. His talent to bring together designers, actors, photographers and writers has given rise to many important collaborations and connections, which are still significant today.
The exhibition “From Exile to Garden: The Life of Princess Natalie Paley” will be discovered at the Hillwood Museum in Washington, DC, from July 6, 2025 to 1is November 2026.
Initially published by Tatler
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