Aimée de Heeren

Born in a small town in southern Brazil, Aimée de Heeren lived for 103 years and crossed the twentieth century in the front row of society: rumoured companion of a Brazilian president, friend of Coco Chanel, named among the best-dressed women in the world. Paris, where she stayed at Le Meurice, and Biarritz, where the couple kept a home, were the twin poles of her glamorous life.

From Paraná to the Catete Palace

She was born Aimée Soto-Maior de Sá on 3 August 1903 in Castro, in the state of Paraná, the daughter of two schoolteachers, Genésio de Sá Sotomayor and Julieta Sampaio Quentel. She left the interior for Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, and married a distant cousin, Luís Simões Lopes, chief of staff to President Getúlio Vargas.

The marriage soon foundered amid rumours of an affair with Vargas himself; her presence at the Catete Palace, the presidential residence, caused controversy. She never confirmed nor denied the liaison, and some historians believe she is the “beloved” woman mentioned in the president’s diary.

Paris on the eve of war

At the end of the 1930s she left Brazil for Europe. She was reportedly sent to France to gather information for Vargas, at a time when Brazil was being courted by the Axis powers. In Paris she moved in high society and became a close friend of Coco Chanel, with whom she attended the Circus Balls given by Elsie de Wolfe; the friendship lasted into Chanel’s last years. The Duke of Westminster, Chanel’s former companion, was said to be besotted with her.

After the German occupation of France she left for the United States, where she was reunited with Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the start of a long friendship with the Kennedy family. In 1941 Time magazine placed her third in its list of the ten best-dressed women in the world.

Le Meurice and La Roseraie

She later married Rodman Arturo de Heeren, a great-grandson of the American department-store magnate John Wanamaker and grandson of the first Count of Heeren; their daughter Cristina became the third Countess. The couple divided their time between New York, Palm Beach, Paris and Biarritz, where, according to French sources, their villa was called La Roseraie. In Paris she spent several months a year at Le Meurice, facing the Tuileries Garden and close to Chanel’s rue Cambon. The Vogue editor Bettina Ballard remembered that “Aimee just wanted to dance and flirt and have fun”.

Biarritz suited her: she is said to have collected jewels that once belonged to Empress Eugénie, the founder of the resort’s fortune. In the mid-1950s the Brazilian press magnate Assis Chateaubriand, then ambassador in London, is said to have fallen for her in turn. In 1996 she entered the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame.

A centenarian of the Atlantic

Age never seemed to slow her down. According to French sources, she swam in the Atlantic at Biarritz until the age of 102, and her hundredth birthday was celebrated there with a lavish party, though her age was so well guarded that few guests knew the occasion. In Paris she is said to have taken internet lessons at the Crèmerie de Paris, and in 2005, at 102, she travelled to Belgrade for the sixtieth birthday of Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia. She died in New York in September 2006, aged 103, and was buried in Palm Beach, Florida.

Sources Wikipedia (EN), “Aimée de Heeren” · Wikipedia (FR), “Aimée de Heeren” · Wikipedia (PT), “Aimée de Heeren” · Wikipedia (EN), “Coco Chanel” · Wikipedia (EN), “International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List”