GUCCI FAMILY SECRET OF MOLESTATION REVEALED BY ALEXANDRA ZARINI

LA TIMES : GUCCI FAMILY SECRET - MOLESTATION 

EXCERPT:  One of Aldo Gucci's granddaughters, Alexandra Zarini, this week spotlighted another horror in the family history with a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Zarini, 35, alleged that from the time she was 6. her former stepfather, Joseph Ruffalo, sexually assaulted her at home in Beverly Hills - abuse that she typically knew was coming when she heard the ice clinking in his glass of scotch as he made his way toward her bedroom, according to court papers.

***

Missy here.  This blog has been overwhelmed with hits on my posts about Aldo Gucci, Patricia Gucci, and Bruna Polombo, the long time mistress of Aldo.  This hits are coming in especially from Italy, curiously a country that I usually don't get a lot of hits from.  I want to acknowledge that there is great interest in this latest story about the Gucci family.  You can read more at the link above, from the Los Angeles Times, and there are a great many more articles from other media sources on this story. 

MINEKO IWASAKI - from GEISHA to MISTRESS OF A FAMOUS ACTOR to WIFE and MOTHER and ARTIST

Born in 1949, Mineko was the mistress of actor Shintaro Katsu, called Toshio, a relationship that went on for several years.

What do we really know about Geisha?

To the point: Are they prostitutes or are they not? The word Geisha translates to artist or woman artist. Girls take classes and train seriously for many years, singing, dancing, playing instruments, conducting tea ceremonies, communicating diplomatically with just about anyone; they are entertaining.  But do they also have to have sex with clients?

The Iwasaki geisha house was a world of women located in the Gion Kobu district of Kyoto, Japan, and according to Mineko Iwasaki, the most famous and traditional kayukai of them all, the place where she spent her entire career, first as a young girl who had to legally choose to be adopted and change her name to the house, then as a Maiko or young dancer, and finally as an accomplished adult woman dancer and entertainer, the most famous who would earn millions of dollars.

But this is what we want to know. Even if they are not sex workers too, aren't they supposed to attract and be kept by a rich patron or two? To become Mistresses? Are they desirable as wives? Maybe the ritualistic aspect of their lives and the emphasis on their artistry and beauty detracts from a form of sexual servitude or sex work?  Or perhaps it depends on how beautiful the woman or how reputable her house or if she is lucky enough to have a loving, very rich patron. Falling in love can be a problem, especially if it is someone who cannot marry you, or cannot admit to knowing you, or who is poor. (Though we are sure the entertaining girl must pretend to very much like a man or love him even if she does not!) 

Having a girl baby is not a problem and single motherhood is not taboo, but having a boy baby may mean going to live elsewhere to raise him.

We learn through films and books that some girls were often given over to this life by parents who could not afford them or who felt there might be a better life ahead for them if they did. The young woman is, we hear, kept innocent of the sexual nature of the life ahead for her.

WHAT WAS MINEKO IWASAKI's experience?

First, I want to get to something that is very important to Mineko and her memoir, called GEISHA, A LIFE.  The film, which greatly impressed me due to its artistry as well as the story, called MEMOIR OF A GEISHA, has a scene in which a geisha's virginity is sold to the highest bidder, as a way of paying back her house for her years of being supported and trained, called misuage. The innocent girl lays back fully dressed in her elaborate kimono and hairstyle and silently awaits what will happen to her.  After this, maybe it's an assumption, but sex might be part of her entertaining.

Apparently, and I say this after reading internet sites and postings around Mineko Iwasaki and her book, is that the author of the novel, Memoirs of a Geisha : a Novel, Arthur Golden, from which the film was based, was sued by Mineko for breaking a verbal agreement to keep her name out of it. He ran her name in a thank you. Both parties were hurt and upset and incredulous. He says he interviewed other geisha or ex-geisha too. One site I read on the Internet said that Mineko had told Golden that her deflowering had sold for $850,000, a record. She was provoked to write her own memoir, you could say to set the record straight.

In her book she denies that Geishas were ever prostitutes or sex workers and makes no mention of her deflowering. Could this be because she never uses the term Geisha on herself, and the name she does use Geiko, is specific to her Kyoto house, in the Gion Kobu district? : maybe in her house deflowerings were not sold to the highest bidder?

Mineko does write in her memoir about being almost raped by her older sister's son when she was about twelve years old, which lead to her older sister's banishment as well as suffering from what we call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, though she does not use that term.  She also recalls being subject to an attack by drunken men on the street and other attempts at molestation that she fought off vigorously. As I read about her night terrors and having to be closely watched over by others as she slept, I couldn't help but wonder if she was ruined. She felt that this experience and her lifestyle to that point in Japan had done something to her that would make it impossible for her to love or be loved and also that not having experienced passionate love, she could not use that experience in her dancing, which was what kept her going, her love of dance.  Certainly with all that there would be room for admitting to this or not.

It may also be that based on beauty and talent or heritage, that some young women were spared the ritualistic deflowering, which I personally have come to believe happened in at least some geisha traditions or houses, but also that such experiences and rituals do not automatically mean it's the beginning of sex work or prostitution. In other words, having to have sex with men not of one's choosing.

Are Geisha raised to be independent women?  So independent that they do not need men?

In this book, which has a wonderfully simply but eloquent language to it, there is much to learn about the tradition, the opportunity it was, as well as Mineko's own life.  She came from a familyin which old broke aristocracy and more recent business acumen did not support a family of thirteen children.  She was the youngest and the fourth daughter to be given over to the same house.

Perhaps this story is different because it takes place in the second half of the 20th century.

Perhaps there were various levels of sex work, just as there is today in the West.  Certainly the film indicates this, as the beautiful child is separated from her less desirable sister who is being used as a child prostitute with no future ahead of her. In our culture, a woman can be pimped out by a man who abuses her, a child can be sex trafficked or at 18 a woman can work for a legal Nevada brothel and pay for her own college education with the money. There are the super models rumored to charge $10,000 for an evening in Los Angeles and the beauties who work film festivals and - it's said - earn more in a day then some people earn all year.  The question of being groomed for this life or choosing it is a huge one.

Some people think of courtesans as prostitutes', but I think the traditional definition of Courtesans is a bit closer to that of a geisha, though it's said that a courtesan chooses who will Keep her, perhaps both the courtesan and the geisha have a chance of seducing the man they want.

I have the idea that because Mineko Iwasaki, born in 1949 and given the name Masako by her parents, was born to a family with a heritage of nobility and wealthy, unable to afford their large family though they were, that she may have been treated exceptionally well from the beginning.  Indeed she was promised to become the Atotori, or heir to the entire house, worth in the millions of dollars.

But let's get over that  intriguing "did she or didn't she?" question and go to something of possibly more interest here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot. Mineko's culture of Japan, where so many marriages were arranged, was quite accepting of a wealthy man having a woman who was or had been a geisha as what we would call a Mistress, a Kept woman.  All her honed talents for charm make for a rather desirable and prestigious Mistress, or Wife.

Mineko writes that she had to force herself to be outgoing and she has long lived quietly as an artist with her artist husband, Jinichiro Sato. 

However she does tell about  first becoming the long time Mistress of a married Japanese actor, stage name Shintaro Katsu, who she called Toshio. Introduced at 15 briefly, and then reintroduced at 18, he persued her after she turned 20.  At the time she was receiving offers of marriage, none which interested her. First she expected him to prove himself to her by showing up at performances every night for three years, which he did!  Having proven his sincerity, she then kept her part of the bargain and became his Mistress. Though there was a protocol of discretion, she traveled with him. He had also claimed he would leave his wife, which he did not.  Mineko finally realized that he was devoted to his wife, as well as possibly having other women as affairs.  She ended the relationship after being humiliated and realizing that she wanted and needed more in a relationship with a man.  She married at age 29 to a man of equal age and she married him very quickly.

The financial aspects of being a Geisha Mistress are usually arranged between the owner of the house, the reigning Atotori, and the man. It was acceptable and she wasted no time worrying about the ethics or morality of it.  A man could have more than one geisha Mistress.  And visa versa. But as time went on, Mineko looked to this man to be true to her.

At the age of 29, she decided to retire at the top of her profession, both acclaimed and wealthy in her own right.  Within her culture and the tradition it was shocking, but Mineko found she wanted more and did not agree with the way things were. She knew she had worked long hours in violation of child labor laws. She wanted the women to be allowed more and better educational opportunities and was disillusioned, considering her life archaic. Dozens of other geisha followed her lead and quit after she did. True to her tradition, she continued financial support of some of the other women of her house as she would have if she had gone on to run it, which had been the plan all along. 

Then she met and married - less than a month after meeting him, the artist, Jinichiro Sato, whose work she was taken with, and lives the life of a wife, mother, householder, as well as a professional artist herself.

Throughout this month, I will feature some excerpts from Mineko Iwasaki's memoir, her own words, focusing on the interplay of women and men in the life she lead as one of the most famous geisha in modern times.

Of interest to my readers is that one of the men who came to see her was someone I wrote about last summer, Aldo Gucci, who was in Japan on fashion business.  In chapter 29, page 18 0f 25 of the e-book, she tells that he ruined her kimono when he signed the red silk with a "flourish of black ink." She hoped to give him the kimono one day since she paid between $5000 and $7000 for a kimono!


C 2018 Mistress Manifesto Blogspot All Rights Reserved


Interested in other "Asian" Mistresses?
Check out these women in my archives!


Evey - Mistress of singer songwriter James Taylor - June 2017
Chinese Empress Dowager CIXI - September 2015
Marilyn Young and Miyoko Watei and the Chess Champ Bobby Fischer - September 2013
May Pang - Mistress of ex-Beatle John Lennon - April 2012


or use a word search such as Japan
And to learn more about Aldo Gucci, who had daughter Patricia Gucci with his mistress, Bruna Palombo, our Mistress of the Month in August 2017.

AT THE FUNERAL WIFE AND MISTRESS WERE THERE

Excerpts and Notes from Patricia Gucci's memoir "In The Name of Gucci."

When Aldo, his first wife Olwen Price, a woman of English heritage, and their three sons, Giorgio, Paolo, and Roberto were at the funeral, as were Patricia and her mother.  Patricia was now 26 years old and pregnant with her second child.

"Eager to pay tribute to my mother, he'd penned his own obituary to be issued upon his death.  Aldo Gucci, he wrote, left behind his wife, Bruna Palombo, and his companion, Olwen Price." (4)

According to Patricia the reversal of the truth was intentional but the New York Times caught the error and printed, "Mr. Gucci is survived by his wife, the former Olwen Price, and three sons," not mentioning Patricia and Bruna at all. (4)

In 2009 when Patricia visited her mother in Rome, where Bruna was living out her life, Bruna gave her a gift of all the love letters Aldo had written to her and telegrams he had sent to her in the early passion of their romance circa 1958-1961, when Patricia had been conceived. (8)

NOTE June 2022

I'm not infallible but I do try to read any books or other materials I reference cover to cover, take notes, and choose excerpts and detail my reportage correctly.  I'm aware that on some of my select subjects there are other books or other media that might say something different.  So, if there is anyone out there who thinks something I've posted is incorrect, please send a link to your reference so I can read it too and evaluate it.

Please read my comments policy.  I do not ever publish on the world wide web anyone's e-mail address or personal contact information.

Thanks!

Missy

WIFE AND MISTRESS LEARN THERE IS ANOTHER MISTRESS IN ALDO'S LIFE

Missy's Notes and Quotes from "In the Name of Gucci" by Patricia Gucci:

Some people think "once a cheat, always a cheat."  I don't think that is true.  Some people cheat because they are with the wrong person for them and very unhappy and it's their way out, perhaps not the most honorable way, but their way.  Others were never meant to be monogamous by nature and need to realize that about themselves and proceed honestly with the people they meet.

However, in the story of Aldo Gucci's Mistress, Bruna Palombo, who'se a Classic Mistress Kept from early womanhood and all her life, and Aldo's one and only wife Olwen Gucci, there is yet another woman, another Mistress, who provides more competition for them both.  In Patricia's memoir, her mother's discovery of this third woman in Aldo's life comes after she has met her much older half brothers. At that point Bruna and Olwen have separate lives with Aldo but he has done what he promised and united the children from his two families with the introduction.  The third woman will challenge Bruna's long held assumption that she was "the one."

Patricia tells us that Olwen and Bruna both stopped trusting Aldo. (160)  Patricia's father visited her and her mother less, a sign that there was trouble, and I imagine especially unnerving because she is so dependent upon him. Bruna knew he'd had "dalliances" in the past too and she'd overheard and seen suspicious things.  Bruna was afraid to make an issue and Patricia's friends also seemed to have fathers who could not be monogamous.  Were all men this way?
The man had nerve.  After hearing that he had set this woman up in an apartment and bought her expensive things including works of art and jewelry, Bruna was shocked to find out that Aldo had taken her out to dinner and introduced her to the new woman without explaining who she was in his life. (161)  She also found photos of the woman on a trip to Palm Beach and wasn't Palm Beach just supposed to be for Bruna and Aldo?

After all the seclusion, after all the privacy that Bruna had complied with and desired, this blonde was being seen all around openly with Aldo.  She had her informants and her notes.  The explosive showdown was now not between the classy Olwen and Bruna, but Bruna and Aldo.  He refused to admit what he was up to until she had an "explosive" argument with him and presented to him the details of all she knew.  Finally, confronted with dates, locations, everything, he admitted he had this other Mistress!

"We were completely on our own with no legal rights." (171)

During crisis Patricia was sent back to boarding school.


*** It's true that Mistresses do not have the legal rights of a wife. I think about why gay people have fought so hard for the right to be legally married.  I think the only way for a Mistress to have legal rights is to become the wife or for us to allow legal marriage to more than one person at a time. I admit this is probably more complicated than the gay marriage issue.  Missy

PALM BEACH FLORIDA

There are many Mistresses in the Palm Beach area

 and throughout the wealthier areas of Florida.

As well as Palm Springs, California, which is treated as

a suburb of Hollywood.

THE FOURTY EIGHT HOURS WITH ALDO "COMPRESSED VISITS"

Missy's Notes and Quotes from "In the Name of Gucci," a memoir by Patricia Gucci.

Many children find themselves outside of marriage and awaiting visits from a parent. Patricia Gucci was one of those children, because her mother Bruna Palombo was a Mistress, set up first to live in England.  Aldo Gucci, a long married man who Kept Bruna visited them about once a month for a weekend.  Patricia calls these visits "compressed."

Patricia says no sooner he came through the door, her mother would start complaining about her and she would be banished to her bedroom. (133)  She realized in adulthood that her mother was in seclusion for weeks and had a lot to talk to him about.  "She rants, vents, they have a fight and reconcile all in forty-eight hours."  This was their pattern, but finally he would relax and Bruna would spoil him.  She "nurtured him and gave him safe harbor."

"He'd leave and the days were dark. Without his affection, my mother withered like an unattended plant." (136)

Eventually so that Bruna could travel with Aldo, Patricia was put into a boarding school where she found herself with "lots of kindred spirits." She loved it. (137)  When the family moved back to Rome in 1973, Patricia was heartbroken. (149)

 
When Patricia was ten years old, Bruna finally told her, "Your father has a wife in Italy and three sons," and admitted she wasn't married to him. (151)


*** Are you the child of a Mistress? We'd like to hear your story.

THE BIRTH OF PATRICIA GUCCI - ALDO's WIFE OLWEN CLAIMS HIM

Notes and Excerpts from PATRICIA GUCCI's book.

In 1963 Patricia was born in England where her father Aldo Gucci, had set up her mother Bruna Palombo, as his Mistress. Bruna wondered if he would not abandon them as while he grew his company, his letters had stopped coming and he didn't see her as much. (101)  But he was there when she was christened in Saint Mary's Catholic Church and his inner circle were there as guests. (102)  Aldo may have lied to the priest. When she was 28 days old they flew back to Rome and a Spanish nanny was assigned to take the baby out in a pram while Bruna lived in secret. (103)


"Olwen (Aldo's wife of 40 years) sent a woman to the Rome apartment to tell Bruna that she knew about her and the baby.  "Signora Gucci feels that it would be in everyone's best interests if you gave up all claim to her husband... If you can't care for your child on your own, Signora Gucci is prepared to take her off your hands..." (104)


"He snapped and went to tell off his wife..."  But Bruna started saving money incase.  A British nanny was hired.  Olwen never interfered again... (107-108)


Bruna felt that close women friends of hers had betrayed her.

GUCCI FASHION SHOW - A LONG WAY FROM LUGGAGE, CARRY BAGS, and SHOES...

A long way from just shoes and luggage and carry bags... My fashionista friends tell me that fashion shows ignite trends and few people actually wear what's shown on the runway.  They say that models are thought of as "hangers!"  And those of us who are not "stringbean" tall don't always look as good as these models, who I think, male and female, look to be starving and ready to drop!  Fashion shows are incredibly exciting though!


GUCCI OFFICIAL SITE

THE SECLUDED BRUNA PALOMBO - A LIFE TIME OF MISTRESSING - ALDO GUCCI

UPDATE DAILY MAIL: PATRICIA GUCCI - PAPA HAS A WIFE AND THREE SONS

PATRICIA GUCCI wrote about her childhood,

her mother BRUNA PALOMBO, and her parents relationship in her book,

"In The Name of Gucci."

She has done well,after some soul searching, as the

acknowledged love child of ALDO GUCCI.

Image from Google Images and appears in the book which is C Patricia Gucci.

ALDO GUCCI, MISTRESS BRUNA PALOMBO, and their daughter PATRICIA

BRUNA PALOMBO's story is that of the CLASSIC MISTRESS, the woman who becomes the Mistress of a successful older man when she is young and is financially secure and cared for, for the rest of her life. She never needs to have another man for all the years that this man is alive and she is financially cared for beyond his death. She is very much like a traditional wife in that way.  She doesn't have much experience in relationships with men prior to meeting him.  She doesn't feel the need to seek other relationships, even when he does.

Bruna Palombo was seduced by Aldo Gucci, founder of the famous fashion house that specialized in shoes, luggage, carry bags, and accessories, when he was her boss and she was a youthful virgin with a fiancée. She was raised to be a proper Italian girl who would go along with the usual plan of loyalty and faithfulness to just one man but there were red flags that her relationship with her fiancée had been played out and would not result in happiness.

Her mother suspected something was going on between her daughter and Aldo while she was still living at home. Maybe it was the occasional expensive and fine gift she had been given that she brought home. Bruna's father had died. Perhaps it was pragmatic of her mother to not protest too much either when it became clear she would not marry her fiancée and be with Aldo instead.

Instead of marriage, which he could not offer her since he already was married to his first wife, Olwen Price, with whom Aldo and had three sons, Aldo offered Bruna the next best thing, to be his Mistress. Not long after this he predictably retired her. 

Aldo established a second household and family with Bruna in Britain, where their only child, daughter Patricia, went to school. He was sure to visit them as much as possible, which was generally about once a month for a long weekend. Patricia says that they were so happy during his visits, but between those visits they just went on with their daily lives, a mother and daughter alone, without that happiness.

Aldo had a secret, and like many men who are the founders of families and family businesses, and are much older than their Mistress, there were employees who knew or suspected what was going on, who were sure to either accept this relationship of his or stay out of his private life. This was none of their business.

The day would come when his wife, the former Olwen Price, and first family, would have to accept things as they were, because Aldo acknowledged Patricia. He wanted to live more openly with Bruna. He wanted Patricia to meet her half brothers and slowly integrate this beautiful and intelligent daughter into the Gucci family business in some way, which he did as she reached adulthood herself and he expanded to America.(The sons were in their forties when Patricia finally met them.)  As a teenager Patricia went to boarding school and spent summers with friends, so she and her mom were living separate lives. As an adult she felt she had been deprived of love as a child. She did move forward into becoming a Gucci public relations person, going to events to represent the Gucci company and her father.

Aldo Gucci had also seduced Olwen, in 1927 when she was working as a personal assistant to Princess Elizabeth of Romania, who felt obligated to protect her. It was the princess who had shown up in Florence, Italy to speak to Aldo's father, who had begun the Gucci empire as a small family business of leather luxury goods. His father considered him to be a womanizer and feared he would hurt the family reputation.  Aldo married Olwen. ***

Patricia describes her mother Bruna as a gentle and perhaps fragile woman who did live for and around Aldo and who appreciated fine things but also hated, but endured, social people and parties. She was a private and retiring person, who I suspect was also depressed.  Patricia turned out to be the more gregarious person, like her father, whose personality was very much a part of his success.

Olwen Price, Aldo's wife, was also a loyal and faithful Italian*** woman who did not want a divorce. Olwen seemed to be afraid to make an issue of Bruna, accepting that Italian men thought it acceptable to have a mistress. However, she did let Bruna know she knew about her and Patricia, that they were no secret to her. A go-between told Bruna it would be best if she turned Patricia over to Olwen's care. So Aldo separated the two women and families by establishing Bruna in England.

Patricia got her independence and lived apart from her parents.  As an adult, she felt her mother had been unable to cope with raising her, that Bruna was dependent on Aldo for absolutely everything and rather helpless.

Eventually the plan was for Olwen to stay in Italy and for Aldo and Bruna to leave Britain and live together in Palm Beach, Florida. This they did. It was as if Bruna was his wife in America.  He publicly referred to her as his wife there.  He also managed to stage a marriage ceremony that was questionable.

In November of 1981, twenty five years after they first met, Aldo married Bruna in a hotel suite. He denied that he had married her to his sons. Meanwhile, Olwen fought for her marriage. Aldo found out his marriage to Olwen might be invalid but it was, so that invalidated this "marriage" to Bruna. "Someone went to England to obtain the marriage certificate there and seventy-three year old Olwen took it to Rome and recorded the document there." (197) Yet Bruna was not entirely without feeling for Olwen.  She insisted that Aldo call her every Sunday and not neglect her. (Page 198)

For both Olwen and Bruna, who came to accept that they were man sharing and had very different relationships with him, it was the fact that Aldo had yet another Mistress that threatened to unsettle everyone's existence.


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Quick note here because this is such a popular post. I cannot contact people who claim relationship with the Gucci family, or Bruna Palombo, or Olwen's for genealogy - contact purposes. The book was written by a Aldo and Bruna's daughter.  I suggest that you read her book for yourself and try to send her a letter via the publisher or her agent. Having some familiarity with genealogy in general, I can say that sometimes various stories come forth that are not in agreement.  For the purposes of this blog, which explores the alternative lifestyle of Kept Women and Men, and so on, I select one or more books, read them cover to cover, and try to be judicious in my excerpts and note-taking.  Sometimes I'm a bit more side-taking, questioning, or opinion-making in my narrative. I think the books I select are worth reading and that you may be interested in doing so too! I'm most often not in personal contact with the various persons I choose as subjects or the authors of the books.  Missy

*****

August 2022:  I'm currently reading, via audio book, THE HOUSE OF GUCCI.  So far everything I've read is in agreement with this post. However I just moved a sentence up as a matter of editing and wish to note the following.

*** Olwen's nationality or ethnic heritage was English/British, however she had been living in Italy and would continue to do so, so she lived in Italian and Gucci family culture, in which the wife was/is generally faithful and loyal even if the husband is not.  And while Bruna's nationality or ethnic heritage was Italian, Aldo had her and/or Patricia living in Britain (and sometimes America).

*** According to House of Gucci, Aldo and Olwen were about 21 when they married and their marriage soon became unhappy.  It also says that Aldo had taken Bruna with him to New York when he started expanding to America by opening a New York store.