In April 1912, Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon and her husband Sir Cosmo were obliged to travel from their home in England to New York on a business matter. Unusually for the time, the business matter was hers, not his, and involved her fashion design house, Lucile.

They were pleased to book passage on the White Star Line’s newest luxury ocean liner, Titanic. When Titanic hit an iceberg and sank four days into her maiden voyage, the Duff Gordons and their maid boarded a lifeboat with capacity for 40 people, but held only 12, mostly crewmembers. As the ship foundered, Lucy reportedly remarked that her maid’s beautiful nightdress was lost. A thoughtless statement, but perhaps understandable given her line of work. The crew took offense, explaining that they had lost everything, including their pay, which stopped the minute the ship was lost. Sir Cosmo then offered them five pounds each to replace their belongings, a gesture that the press later characterized as bribery, suggesting that the Duff Gordons paid the crew not to go back and pick up victims dying in the icy water. The story followed them both for the rest of their lives. Lady Duff Gordon continued to create clothes for celebrity clients, early films and theatrical productions such as the Ziegfeld Follies, until the early 1920s. According to Andrew Wilson’s book Shadow of the Titanic, Lucile designs failed to modernize with the times and bad business deals eventually put an end to the company she had built from the ground up. She died in 1935 aged 71. Library Special Collections holds 255 color sketches of her designs, dating from 1913-1923. Many of the sketches feature lyrical titles such as "Remember Me," “Dear Lady Disdain," "Why Do You Hesitate?" and "A Solemn Thought."   By Megan Hahn Fraser, Processing Projects Librarian