Millicent Rogers, the Standard Oil heiress and jewelry designer, in a portrait by painter Bernard Boutet de Monvel. 1948

Horst P. Horst

Millicent Rogers in a necklace of her own design and gown designed by Charles James

Horst P. Horst (DE-US, 1906 - 1999)

Millicent Rogers in a Charles James gown and a gold necklace of her own design, Vogue Studios. Vogue, February 1, 1949

Millicent Rogers by Horst P. Horst, Vogue Studios, 1948

Her sculptural necklace echoes the zeitgeist of avant-garde Jewelry design, possibly w Hopi-Moor inspired forms

Mary Millicent Abigail Rogers (US, 1902-1953)

“The Standard Oil Heiress” was set to live a life of luxury and privilege. However, she became gravely ill with rheumatic fever as a young child. Though she recovered, she was left with lifelong heart and lung complications along with physical disabilities. Knowing that she would inevitably die young, Millicent Rogers became a socialite w an insatiable lust for life... still credited today as an influence on major fashion designers. 

Later in life, she became an activist for Native American civil rights.

After being jilted by Clark Gable, she spent the final five years of her life—1948-53—in Taos, where she discovered spirituality

https://www.veranda.com/luxury-lifestyle/luxury-fashion-jewelry/a35351622/millicent-rogers-style/

https://classicchicagomagazine.com/millicent-rogers-american-style-icon/

Elsa Schiaparelli (Italian, 1890–1973)

Necklace ca. 1937

A striking, unusual design, this necklace by Schiaparelli is characteristic of her highly original design aesthetic. The sculptural piece, crisp in gold metal, although worn as jewelry, also looks like and functions as a collar, exemplar of Schiaparelli's Surrealist influences. This conflation of form, an idea central to Surrealism, is reflective of Schiaparelli's involvement and collaboration with Surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau. Worn by devoted client and fashion icon Millicent Rogers, the necklace would have perfectly suited her arresting features.

"You will always be a measure by which I shall judge what a true man should be.  As I never found such a one before you, so I believe I shall never find such a man again...The love I have for you is like a rock. Now it is the foundation upon which a life is being built..."