Luisa Casati Stampa di Soncino, b. 1881. "Futurism's Dark Lady."

Top Five Reasons She's Our Favorite Fashionista:

1. She was famous for walking her two pet cheetahs through the streets of Venice while wearing nothing but a fur coat. Toy dogs are so last season.

2. Once the wealthiest woman in Italy, and a huge patron of the arts, she was $25 million in debt by the 1920s. Gotta love a woman who spends her fortune on art.

3. The lady knew how to set goals. A muse to a host of artists, writers, and designers--including Jack Kerouac and Umberto Boccioni--she once proclaimed, "I want to be a living work of art."

4. Fashionable to the end, she was buried wearing a leopard print cape and false eyelashes. She probably never went to the grocery store without make-up.

5. And then there was the movie! The inspiration for countless plays, novels, and fashion lines, she was later immortalized in film by Vivien Leigh and Ingrid Bergman.