Following several changes of address and an aspirational marriage to Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, Maison Lucile settled at 23 Hanover Square.

Lucile was an innovator and was particularly good at marketing. She sold matching lingerie; dressed actresses and musical comedy stars on and off-stage; opened a branch in New York; and briefly designed a mail order fashion line for Sears, Roebuck & Co.

The designer was also one of the first to promote dresses with fashion shows, which not only attracted female clients but also gentlemen who came to stare at the beautiful models.

After 1920, Lucile retired from her business but continued to broadcast and write about fashion. She published her autobiography, aptly named Discretions and Indiscretions, not long before her death on 20 April 1975 (78 years ago this week). Despite her contribution to the fashion world, Lucile became best known for having survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

A guest post by Beatrice Behlen from the Museum of London as part of our Visiting the Past series. More fascinating London history next week

The Savoy recently re-opened in a flurry of excitement after a multi-million-pound refurbishment. Since then it’s been packed with celebrities and the world’s elite.

Now we’re giving you a chance to join them. You can win a night for two at the hotel, plus dinner and drinks in a London restaurant and VIP tickets to Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition at The O2.

Find out how the other half live – enter our amazing Christmas competition today!

Enter Day 17: A Night at The Savoy with Dinner and Titanic Exhibition Tickets here

This Wednesday, we’ll be premiering exclusive video footage of the latest underwater expedition to the Titanic wreck.

The new video will be revealed at www.visitlondon.com/titanic on Wednesday evening (24 November 2010). Check back then and be among the first to see the amazing footage!

When Titanic set sail from Southampton on 10 April 1912, the ship was thought to be virtually unsinkable. But five days later, it collided with an iceberg and sank with the loss of 1,500 lives.

Now hundreds of original artefacts from Titanic are going on show at The O2 in London. I had a preview of the exhibition this morning.

On entering the gallery, the first thing you see is the bell from the ship’s crow’s nest, lit up in red and accompanied by evocative music and ringing sounds. Lookout Frederick Fleet rang the bell three times on the night of the collision, with the warning ”iceberg right ahead!”

In subsequent rooms, you learn about the design and construction of the Titanic, before seeing an array of passenger possessions, which are a poignant reminder of the lives lost. There are playing cards, a leather cigarette case, a toothpaste jar, and even a handkerchief that survived years under the ocean.

The exhibition gives a good feel of the ship’s interiors. There are reconstructions of first and third-class cabins and the dramatic engine room, as well as fascinating artefacts such as the bath plug from a first-class cabin, which was installed at the side of the bath so passengers didn’t have to reach into the dirty water. (The 700 third-class passengers had to share two bathtubs.)

Titanic was designed to carry cargo, hence the full title RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Titanic, and there’s a gallery displaying the remnants of some of this cargo. Although shipping goods on Titanic was relatively expensive, traders saved on insurance costs because the ship was considered to be so safe.

As you near the end of the exhibition, the galleries become noticeably colder and darker. There’s a frosty iceberg wall, where you can feel how cold the sea was on the night of the disaster. Many of the casualties died of hyperthermia rather than drowning.

At the exhibition’s entrance, everyone receives a boarding pass with the name and details of a real Titanic passenger. At the end you can check the “memorial wall” to find out whether the person named on your card survived. The exhibition is an educational and emotional journey, and well worth a visit when it opens to the public on Friday.

Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition is at The O2 from 5 November 2010 to 1 May 2011