“Alexis: The Memoirs Of The Baron De Rede” 2005 VICKERS, Hugo The Cary Collection

VICKERS, Hugo

[174] pp.

The Dovecote Press Ltd

2005

10 1/4″ x 8 3/4″

Fine/ Fine

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‘Alexis, Baron de Rede (1922-2004) will be remembered as the man who restored the Hotel Lambert, where he lived from 1949 until his death on 9 July 2004 at the age of 82. A man of exceptional elegance and style, he lived a life in which aesthetic perfection was his aim and his ideal. He hosted the magnificent Oriental Ball at the Lambert in 1969, and was the last survivor of a world in which magnificent costume balls were given and the beau monde of the world invited.’ 

These posthumously-published memoirs, edited by Hugo Vickers, talk about his life within the beau monde and include cameo appearances from many great artistic and social figures, including Salvador Dali, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Yves Saint Laurent, Brigitte Bardot, Rudolf Nureyev, Maria Callas and Elizabeth Taylor.

Here are the long-awaited, in some cases feared, memoirs of the Baron de Redé, a man who lived his life at the heart of the beau monde, and knew where the aristocratic skeletons lie buried. He wrote of his traumatic childhood, his courageous lone voyage to the United States, and how he caught the eye and heart of one of Europe’s most enigmatic figures Arturo Lopez-Willshaw. Joining Lopez in Paris after the war, he took on the restoration of the Hotel Lambert. With Arturo, and indeed with his wife Patricia, he attended or was host to some of the great balls of the age. Alexis de Redé was never far from the epicentre of high society, and some of the great artistic and social figures of the twentieth century played cameo roles in his life. His friendships were many, and remarkably diverse, including Salvador Dalí, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Yves Saint Laurent, Brigitte Bardot, Rudolf Nureyev, Maria Callas, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. In these sparkling memoirs, profusely illustrated with images from his own collection, he talked of his close friendship with Arturo, and after his death with the legendary queen of Paris society, Marie-Hélène de Rothschild. A man of exceptional elegance and style, he lived a life in which aesthetic perfection was his aim and his ideal. He will be remembered as the man who restored the Hotel Lambert where he lived from 1949 until his death on 9 July 2004 at the age of 82. He hosted the splendid Oriental Ball at the Lambert in 1969 and was the last survivor of a world in which magnificent costume balls were given and the beau monde of the world invited. An exquisite host, whose lunches, dinners and parties were legendary, he was also an astute businessman.