Edward Molyneux - Overview

Overview

Born in London to Justin Molyneux and Lizzy Kenny, Edward Molyneux attended Beaumont College, a Roman Catholic preparatory school. Owing to the death of his father, he dropped out at the age of 16 to pursue his ambitions as a painter and illustrator. After a period working for the British fashion designer Lucile, Molyneux opened his fashion house in Paris at 14 rue Royale in 1919 (later, 5 rue Royale), expanding to Monte Carlo in 1925, Cannes in 1927, and London in 1932, becoming known for his "never too rich or too thin" idle slim "refined at the edge of outrageous" look, frowning on superfluous decoration, and going on to dress European royalty like Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, British high society, actresses Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Gertrude Lawrence, Margaret Leighton, and Vivien Leigh, and interior decorator Syrie Maugham. His followers included Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain. He was friends with Noël Coward. "The designer to whom a fashionable woman would turn if she wanted to be absolutely right without being utterly predictable" (Caroline Milbank).

During World War II, he moved his firm to London for the duration of the conflict and returned to Paris in 1946. In 1965, he came out of retirement, Time magazine described him as "the Parisian equivalent of Manhattan's Mainbocher, a classicist devoted to the soft look and tailored line."

Though he retired in 1950 to take up painting, leaving his fashion house in the hands of designer Jacques Griffe, Molyneux returned to fashion in 1964, when he opened Studio Molyneux, a high quality ready-to-wear line that received mixed reviews. He retired again in 1969, but Studio Molyneux continued under the direction of his cousin John Tullis until it closed in 1977.

The Molyneux trademark is owned by French company Parfums Berdoues, and though the fashion component of the firm remains dormant, the firm still produces scents, such as Captain (1975), Quartz (1978), Le Chic, Vivre, I Love You and Quartz Pure Red (2008).