Millicent Rogers in Taos: 20th Century Style Icon

In their 1994 book The Power of Style, Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins focused on 14 women of the 20th Century who "defined the art of living well."  Among the select group were Coco Chanel, Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Millicent Rogers.  Because my blog focuses on all things Taos, I wanted to relay a few pieces of information about Millicent Rogers in the next couple of entries.

Millicent Rogers

She moved to Taos in 1947 and died five short years later at the relatively young age of 53.  In that span of time, Millicent Rogers amassed important collections of art, textiles, jewelry, and pottery that remain intact today at the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos.  The authors of The Power of Style noted that "No other American woman of style assembled a collection of anything that still remains intact."  One thing that makes them so extraordinary is that these are the collections of lifetimes -- not just one lifetime and certainly not just five brief years of one lifetime.

Coming as she did to Taos near the end of her life, she entered a world that was completely alien to her upbringing in the high society circles of Manhattan and Europe.  Before coming here major fashion houses of the 20th Century had determined that the "perfect" measurements for draping their creations were those of Millicent Rogers' body.  There are many, many stories of her influence on styles of her time that happened long before she came to New Mexico.  But it is here that her influence has endured and its reach has lasted.

When she arrived in 1947, Taos was already well-known as a major art capital.  In part due to her influence, Taos has remained so for decades.  As Dave Hicky said in his 2009 introduction to Dennis Hopper's show at Taos' Harwood Museum,  

"In the twentieth century, [Taos] has probably produced more serious art and literature than any other non-metropolitan area in the United States..."

But for all its amazing artistic influence, Taos was not known as a fashion center or a place of "style" other than perhaps Pueblo architecture.  No matter.  That, too, would change.

She immediately began meeting the local artists and artisans of her time.  Maria Martinez, for example, who's "black-on-black" style pottery was the first of its kind, became very close with Millicent Rogers.  The largest collection of "Maria Pots" in the world now resides at the Millicent Rogers Museum.

Maria Martinez Pottery

In addition to pottery and art, Millicent Rogers loved jewelry.  I have heard it said that what we all think of today as "Southwestern Jewelry" was permanently influenced by what Millicent Rogers bought or designed for herself during her time in Taos.  The collection of over 400 pieces at her museum is impressive to say the least.

One final word about her collections:  as time passes, experts and collectors from around the world have come to believe that many pieces in the Millicent Rogers' collections are some of the most important masterworks of their genre.  They are, just as she was, nothing short of extraordinary.