# Paloma Picasso

Paloma Picasso (born Anne Paloma Ruiz-Picasso y Gilot on 19 April 1949) is a French jewelry designer and businesswoman, best known for her collaboration with Tiffany & Co, and her signature perfumes.
The daughter of artists Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot, she is represented in many of her father's works, such as Paloma with an Orange and Paloma in Blue. She is also represented in her mother's work, "Paloma à la Guitare” (1965), which sold for $1.3 million in 2021.
Picasso is renowned for being among the most stylish ladies in the world. She was a muse to fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, and Vanity Fair has inducted her into the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List.

## Early life

Paloma Picasso was born in Paris to artists Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot on April 19, 1949. Her name, Paloma (Dove), is associated with the symbol her father designed for the World Peace Council's World Congress of Partisans for Peace, held in Paris at the time of Paloma's birth, and it can be found in many of her father's works.
Picasso had a half-brother Paulo Picasso (1921–1975) and half-sister Maya Picasso (1935–2022) from her father, and she has another half-sister, Aurelia (b. 1956), from her mother's marriage to artist Luc Simon.
Picasso spent her childhood in Paris and the South of France, where she and her brother Claude Picasso were immersed in the vibrant culture and intellectual zeitgeist. She took an interest in drawing as a child, "but, as I grew up I started feeling the weight of my heritage," she said.

## Career

Picasso started working as a costume designer and stylist for avant-garde theater plays in Paris after attending the Université Paris Nanterre.
Some rhinestone necklaces she had created from stones purchased at flea markets drew attention from critics. Encouraged by this early success, the designer pursued formal schooling in jewelry design. A year later, Picasso presented her first efforts to her friend, fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who immediately commissioned her to design accessories to accompany one of his collections. In 1971, Picasso launched her first collection of costume jewelry in his Rive Gauche boutiques in Paris. Her vintage 1940s style inspired Yves Saint Laurent's 1971 Scandal collection. Thorough him she became part of artist Andy Warhol's social circle.
Picasso portrayed Countess Erzsébet Báthory in Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk's erotic film, Immoral Tales (1973), receiving praise from the critics for her beauty.
After the death of her father in 1973, Picasso took a hiatus from designing to catalogue his estate and help establish the Musée Picasso in Paris.
In 1979, Picasso began working for the Greek jewelry company Zolotas.
In 1980 Picasso began designing jewelry for Tiffany & Co. of New York. The company's design director emeritus, John Loring, described Picasso’s designs as "aggressively chic and uncompromisingly stylised. Her signature is seen in X’s, scribbles and zigzags, all sculpted in gold. She also punctuates gold with lavishly scaled colored gemstones."
In 1984 she began experimenting with fragrance, creating the "Paloma" perfume for L'Oréal. In the New York Post Picasso described it as intended for "strong women like herself." A cosmetics and bath line including body lotion, powder, shower gel, and soap were produced in the same year.
Two American museums have acquired Picasso's work for their permanent collections. Housed in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History is a 396.30-carat kunzite necklace designed by her. And visitors to The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago can view her 408.63-carat moonstone bracelet accented with diamond "lightning bolts."
Since 1983, she has been a member of the International Best Dressed List.
In 2010, Picasso celebrated her 30th anniversary with Tiffany and Co. by introducing a collection based upon her love of Morocco, called Marrakesh. In 2011, she debuted her Venezia collection, which celebrates the city of Venice and its motifs.

## Red

Picasso has a penchant for red; her red lipsticks were called "her calling cards". François Nars says about Picasso, "red is her trademark." "It's her signature, defining, one might say, the designer's red period."
Her fascination with red started at an early age, when she began wearing bright red lipstick at age 6. She has become recognizable by her red lipstick; "Her angular profile serves as a reminder of her father's Cubist inclinations." When she feels like staying incognito, she simply avoids wearing her red lipstick: "Red lips have become my signature, so when I don’t want to be recognized, I don’t wear it."

## Personal life

When Picasso's father died in 1973, his widow Jacqueline Roque prevented Picasso and her brother from attending his funeral. After a legal battle, a French court ruled that the inheritors to the Picasso estate were Roque, his children and grandchildren.
In 1978, Picasso married Argentine playwright and director Rafael Lopez-Cambil (also known as Rafael Lopez-Sanchez) in a black-and-white themed wedding. The couple later divorced. In 1999, Picasso married Eric Thévenet, a doctor of osteopathic medicine. Picasso and Thévenet live in Lausanne, Switzerland and in Marrakech, Morocco.
Picasso has homes in Lausanne and Marrakesh.