Coco Think She Fancy

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Before Gaga, Before Leigh Bowery, there was Luisa, Marquise Casati Stampa di Soncino. Born in 1881, Marchesa Casati famously declared ”I want to be a living work of art”—a promise the eccentric Italian heiress, muse, and patron of the arts more than lived up to. Widely considered to be the most oft-rendered-in-art woman of all time (next to Cleopatra and the Virgin Mary, naturally), she was also an early patron of such legendary couturiers as Paul Poiret, Mariano Fortuny and Erté—whose extravagant custom creations the Marchesa was known to accessorize with live snakes (worn as jewelry), nude male servants, and a pet cheetah or two on diamond-studded leashes.