Legendary stylist and writer: Žuži Jelinek passed away in Zagreb

Žuži Jelinek passed away at the age of 96. Žuži was hospitalized, but more details are unknown, reports the Patria News Agency.

The legend of the Croatian fashion scene, who was not afraid to speak and write about real male-female relationships, was born in 1920 in Budapest. As a young woman, she went to Paris, where she worked as a seamstress at the fashion house of Nina Ricci, and later briefly for Coco Chanel.

Due to her love for foreign languages, she learned as many as seven. Upon returning to Zagreb, she opened her own shop, and soon after married her first husband, Erich Jelinek. After him, she married three more times, and thanks to her vast life experience, she wrote ten books.

Žuži was a long-time member of the Council of the Jewish Community of Zagreb, but stated in her autobiography that she had been an atheist since all three of her brothers were killed during the Holocaust. It was also rumored that Steven Spielberg, upon hearing about the woman who risked everything during the Holocaust to save her parents, wanted to make a film about her, but Žuži refused because she did not want to live in America.