Читать книгу What wonderful women! - Elena Rai - Страница 7

“…On the exhausted face arrogant eyes”

Anna Akhmatova about Lilya Brick

Lily Brick makes into history as a Muse, inspirer, colleague, and the greatest love of Vladimir Mayakovskiy. She also was for the poet his real evil genius. All her life she kept him near her on a long leash, and he, like a faithful dog, obeyed her in everything. Mayakovskiy even signed in his letters to Lilya – “Your Schen.”(from Russian – puppy) Not every woman can get such power over man, and Lilya is easily managed, because since 13 years she has artfully mastered the secrets of seduction.

Lilya Brick lived a very bright and long life, kept literary salons, was married three times, had countless relationships, and was an icon of style. Mayakovskiy’s beloved woman knew a lot about fragrances, adored “Guerlain”. When she was escorted to the last journey, she had an intoxicating fragrance “Opium” from “Yves Saint Laurent”. When she was 84, the muse of the poet could seduce the master of French fashion, who later showed her great sympathy. With the famous French fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent, Lilya met when she was 84, in Sheremetyevo. Waiting for boarding on a Paris flight, Laurent paid attention to a stylish stranger in a green coat from Dior in a crowd of unsightly women. Acquaintance became a close friendship. Outfits created by the master of high fashion special for her appeared in Lilya’s wardrobe. In honour of the 85th anniversary of his Russian friend, he arranged a dinner in a Parisian restaurant and sewed for her a gorgeous dress of velvet and taffeta especially for this occasion. Lilya followed fashion and updated her wardrobe, not afraid of experimenting with clothes and looks. She dressed in Parisian outfits at that time when the whole country wore “Bolshevik” factory clothes. She drove her own car, being the second female driver after the French Ambassador’s wife in Moscow. The walls of her room was painted in blue to set off her white skin and Golden hair.

Such women are born rarely. They leave behind a deep trace, going far into history. She had something that no one woman had. All her life, even in old ages, Lilya Brick remained the center of attraction for men. A beautician, who knew Lilya Brick at the age of fifty, said, “Her skin was glowing like a light bulb inside