Adorable Story #50: Consuelo Crespi

The American-born Italian Countess who changed the world of fashion

“Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball was the last of the parties where people weren’t ashamed to be glamorous”

— Consuelo Crespi

Consuelo Pauline O'Brien O'Connor Crespi (May 31, 1928 – October 18, 2010) was an American-born Italian countess who served the world of high fashion as a style-setting model and editor of Vogue America and Vogue Italia. She helped propelling the career of many Italian fashion designers who would later become powerhouses of the fashion world.

Early life

Consuelo Pauline O’Brien O’Connor was born in Larchmont, N.Y., on May 31, 1928, along with her twin sister, Gloria.

Gloria O’Brien O’Connor who would later marry Frank Schiff, an insurance executive, and became Gloria Schiff.

Their father had emigrated from Ireland to the U.S. and had lived the American dream: he started off washing bottles at a mineral water company and ended his career running the company.

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After their parents separated, the girls and their mother moved to Nova Scotia, Canada. Their mother took them to Manhattan in 1943 and the sisters were spotted as potential models by a French photographer: they appeared on the cover of Look Magazine in 1945.

Gloria Schiff and Consuelo Crespi in Costa Smeralda, Sardinia, 1968 — Photo © by Slim Aarons / Gettyimages

New York

Consuelo was a debutante in 1947, the same year she appeared in a small role in the short-lived Broadway play “Miracle in the Mountains.”

Portrait of Consuelo Crespi by Henry Clarke, 1953 — Photo © Palais Galliera

In New York, she met Count Rodolfo (Rudi) Crespi (São Paulo, 1924 – New York, 1985), grandson of wealthy Italian industrialist Count Rodolfo Crespi (1874–1939) and Countess Marina Crespi (née Regoli, 1879–1964), on a blind date at the Colony restaurant (a beehive of socialites and celebrities).

They were married three months later, on January 22, 1948, in a ceremony held at Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The couple had two children, Brando Crespi and Pilar Crespi.

Italian countess, model and fashion editor Consuelo Crespi, born Consuelo O'Brien O'Connor Crespi, strolls with her husband count Rudi Crespi in the streets of Portofino. Portofino (Italy), 1955 — Photo © by Archive Mondadori via Getty Images

Aristocratic beauty & popular culture

The American Consuelo O’Connor thus became the Italian Countess Crespi and ended up symbolizing a sort of impossible, aristocratic beauty.