Sibyl Colefax

Sibyl Sophie Julia,[1] Lady Colefax (née Halsey; 1874 – 22 September 1950) was an English interior decorator[2] and socialite in the first half of the twentieth century.

Widely admired for her taste, after she had lost most of her fortune in the Wall Street Crash she began to decorate professionally, using her formidable address book for contacts.

She was able to purchase the decorating division of the antique dealers Stair and Andrew of Bruton Street, Mayfair and established Sibyl Colefax Ltd in partnership with Peggy Ward, the Countess Munster.

[11] She was the inspiration, according to the art historian John Richardson, for the designer Mrs. Beaver in Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust, and for Mrs. Aldwinkle in Aldous Huxley's Those Barren Leaves.

[12] In the 1940s she was referred to frequently by the diarist and socialite politician Henry "Chips" Channon, who describes her as "charming, gentle and sad".