ArtistFrench (Italian-born)
Nina Ricci
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Maria 'Nina' Ricci was born on 14 January 1883 in Turin, Italy, and moved to France at the age of 12, quickly finding her calling in the ateliers of Paris. By 13 she had begun an apprenticeship at a dressmaker's, and in 1908 she joined the House of Raffin, where she spent two decades honing her craft. Her approach was unconventional in that she never worked from sketches - she constructed directly on the dress form, trusting her hands and her eye for materials above all. This tactile confidence placed her alongside figures like Alix Gres in terms of technical precision.
In 1932, at the age of 49, she co-founded her own couture house in Paris with her son Robert Ricci, who managed the business while she controlled the creative output. The timing was difficult - the Depression had hit fashion hard - but Nina Ricci found a clear market position: refined, feminine, and romantic without the severity of Chanel or the theatricality of Schiaparelli. Her prices deliberately undercut Lanvin and Chanel by as much as a third, making high couture accessible to the upper middle class. The house built a loyal following among women who valued elegance over provocation.
The most enduring extension of the house came in 1941, when Robert Ricci established an in-house perfumery. In 1948, the house launched L'Air du Temps, a floral-spicy fragrance created to evoke hope and peace in the aftermath of war. The iconic bottle - two crystal doves resting on the stopper - was designed by Marc Lalique in collaboration with Robert Ricci. L'Air du Temps became one of the best-selling perfumes of the 20th century and remains in production today. The collaboration with Lalique produced a series of collector-grade crystal flakons that have since become highly sought after in the vintage market.
Nina Ricci herself remained active at the house until the late 1950s before gradually stepping back. She died in Paris on 30 November 1970, aged 87. After her death, the house was led by successive designers including Gerard Pipart, who guided the ready-to-wear line for decades. In 1998, the Spanish luxury and beauty group Puig acquired Nina Ricci, and the brand has since been reshaped several times, with designers including Olivier Theyskens and Guillaume Henry leading more recent reinventions of its romantic aesthetic.
On Auctionist, Nina Ricci appears as a fashion and accessories brand rather than an individual artist, reflecting the fact that the house's name has outlived its founder by over five decades. All 13 tracked lots are vintage pieces: silk scarves, clip earrings, leather gloves with black suede bows, tailored suits, fur coats, and Lalique display perfume bottles. Items have sold at houses including Auktionshuset Kolonn, Barcelona Auctions, and Bruun Rasmussen across Denmark and Sweden. Prices have been modest, between 300 and 921 SEK for most items, consistent with the secondary market for mid-tier vintage couture labels. The Lalique perfume bottles from this house can reach significantly higher prices elsewhere, and collectors active in the Nordic market occasionally surface them at regional auction houses.