Talk:Donna Marcella Borghese

Post Revlon

I am the grandson of Princess Marcella Borghese. This page is about her and her life, not the Borghese cosmetic's company. What does Costco and sunglasses have to do with her history? Please don't use my grandmother's page to market and advertise for products. Furthermore, your information is incorrect on numerous levels. My grandmother was born in Umbria, not Sicily, and Georgette does not own the brand. It is been commented in numerous articles that the brand is owned by a Saudi family. Miss Mosbacher is free to write as she wishes on HER page, but not that of my grandmother's. Furthermore, Borghese cosmetics is free to write their own history on Wikipedia about their company, but this page is not a company page, it's the page of my grandmother. Out of respect to my grandmother who died 10 years ago, i would appreciate that you no longer make changes to her page. If she were alive today and knew that her page was being used to promote products instead of her history, she would be outraged. Feel free to email me on my facebook account. As her grandson, i know her history very well and appreciate that you leave her page alone. Thank you.

Lorenzo Borghese — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.102.180 (talk) 20:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Post Revlon (Again)

The section keeps getting edited to promote products/achievements, and has not yet added a reference. References for statements about productivity, sales and results need to be added.--99.231.196.195 (talk) 13:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Articles on Princess Borghese indicates she was born in Foligno which is in Umbria, not Sicily. The Borghese are not royalty but nobililty. The title Prince is used by the Papal nobility. Actually her title Duchess of Bomarzo outranked her title as Princess. She was asked once in San Antonio, Texas why she didn't use the title Duchess instead of Princess. She stated the title Princess was the older one. However, probably Charles Revson knew he would get more mileage marketing her products to Americans as they would not understand that in some places a Duchess outranks a Princess.

A prince according to Wikipedia can be a reigning monarch, head of a noble family or members of a royal or highly noble family sharing their title with others of the same rank.

The Borghese are directly descended from James II of England but that far back doesn't make you royalty. However, that nobility is viewed as more significant than some petty royalty. Their contribution has been far greater than a royal family whose only contribution is gamgling casinos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Satomlin07 (talk • contribs) 09:08, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Rename to Princess Marcella Borghese

Please change Marcella's name back to the name she is most well-known by which is in accordance with Wikipedia standards. Her name she be her married name, Princess Marcella Borghese. This holds true with many other famous people in the Wikipedia database including Princess Diana. See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_dianaBoardroom09 (talk) 20:20, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Because she was known as that name in court and in her obituary it seems like that name is preferable to a birth name which she did not use. I moved it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:44, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Post Revlon (Again) 2

Hi,

it seems that the user 24.215.248.86 and I are on an edit war in this page. This is a biography page, not a commercial page or a company page or a product line page. For this reason, only information related to the person's life should be included (in this case Princess Marcella Borghese). Please do not keep on adding information that is unrelated to her life. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juliet55 (talk • contribs) 19:07, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

If this page is not to include company or commercial information regarding the Borghese cosmetics company, then please stop saying the line is owned by a Saudi family when that is not accurate. There have been numerous editing attempts with numerous references cited to show that the line is owned by Georgette Mosbacher. If this is to be a biography page, then remove all mention of the Borghese cosmetics company and its current management. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.215.249.6 (talk) 21:59, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Updates by 190.244.147.188

Hi! I wanted to clarify that the updates done by IP 190.244.147.188 were done by me. I wasn't aware that I was logged out. Since the page is now protected I clarify this here and not in the edit history of the page. Juliet55 (talk) 00:47, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

That works fine, Juliet, but I should point out that the current semi-protection doesn't prevent you from editing the article. When you're logged in, that is! Semi-protection prevents edits from IP addresses and edits from any account that is less than four days old and doesn't have at least ten edits to Wikipedia, not from anybody else. Bishonen | talk 01:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC).

"Storied ancestors"

The notion of acquiring grand ancestors through marriage is a little unusual. How can Paolo Borghese's ancestors deserve this much space in his wife's bio? Especially since we don't see any sign of them in Paolo's own page. I've moved the following text from Marcella's page to Paolo's:

Through her marriage to Prince Paolo Borghese, her storied ancestors include Napoleon’s sister, Paulina Bonaparte Borghese (whose famous statue by Canova is displayed in the Galleria Borghese, Pope Paul V (Camillo Borghese) and Cardinal Scipione Borghese, both of whom had an enormous influence on Italian art and beautifying Rome in the 1600s, and who helped finish St. Peter's Basilica. To honor Pope Paul V’s accomplishment, the Borghese family name (spelled in Latin, Bvrghesivs ) and coat of arms (eagle and a dragon) can be found on the façade of the famous basilica.

Borghese's family coat of arms

The Borghese family received their Papal Titles (Prince and Princess) from Pope Paul V in the early 1600’s. During that time, the Pope could raise armies and often had powers equal to a king, like a king, he had the power to bestow Royal titles, called “Papal” titles, on people. These titles were often tied to territories of land. Princess Marcella's branch of the family received five different titles, which include the Prince of San Paolo and Prince of Sant'Angelo and Duke of Bomarzo.

The Princess'ancestors were also one of the largest owners of property and art throughout Italy. While Pope Paul V was in power, he purchased entire towns and approximately 1/3 of the land south of Rome. As a family, the Borgheses became the largest landowners of the "Roman Campagna," the central region in Italy, which is an area of approximately 1,300 square miles.

The Borghese name is displayed throughout Italy, including Florence at the Palazzo Borghese, Siena, where the family began and Rome where the name is most prominent. Rome’s largest Park, Villa Borghese gardens, was owned by the family until 1902, and one of Rome’s largest museums, Galleria Borghese, holds the family’s art collection. One of Rome’s most famous streets is also named after the family, Via Borghese, and the family’s crest can be found in many piazzas throughout Italy. The family also has a private chapel in one of Rome’s most famous basilicas, Santa Maria Maggiore. Beneath this Basilica is a private crypt where many of the famous Borgheses are laid to rest, including Pope Paul V, Paulina Borghese and her husband, Camillo Borghese as well as the Princess herself and her beloved husband, Prince Paolo Borghese.

I'm worried about its place in Paolo Borghese too, really, since a book by Lorenzo Borghese hardly qualifies as a third-party source. Still, at least now the material (pared down a little to be more neutral) is in the right article.

Contrast the weight given to Paolo Borghese and his ancestors here with the fact that her first husband isn't even named. That's downright strange in a biography. Since relatives of Marcella are editing this article, perhaps somebody has that information, and can put it in. Bishonen | talk 15:17, 24 May 2013 (UTC).

Company ownership

(I've moved this section down from above, so people will notice that ExcuseMeNYC has recently added text to it. Bishonen | talk 19:05, 26 May 2013 (UTC).)

Georgette Mosbacher does, in fact, own the company. It has been stated many times in numerous television interviews, news articles and statements from Ms. Mosbacher. She owns a majority stake while investors own the remaining shares. The Saudi family you refer to is who purchased the line from Revlon. Georgette took control and ownership of the brand in 2000 after consulting for them for a year. (This text was originally posted by 24.215.249.6, 28 April 2013.)

This page is not for the Borghese cosmetics company, but for Princess Marcella Borghese the person. Who owns the company now is not relevant to this page and it has been incorrectly stated that the line is owned by a Saudi holding company. Please stop referencing this as its incorrect and this is not a company or product page. (This text was added by User:ExcuseMeNYC, 26 May 2013.)

Hi, ExcuseMeNYC! Thanks for posting on this page. I hope you don't mind my moving your post to a more conventional position. I think there needs to be something in the article about how the Princess's cosmetics company went from being part of Revlon in the fifties to being today "simply known as Borghese", because that's quite a jump. The sentence that you removed, "In 1992 the company was sold to Mawarid Trading, a cosmetic division of Mawarid Holdings", was a bit vague, and should be rewritten to state clearly that Revlon sold it (as opposed to "was sold"), and also to state who owns it now. I can't agree with you that it's uninteresting who owns it now; if Revlon's ownership before 1992 is to be mentioned, surely the present owner should be mentioned, too. The company is still called "Borghese", after the Princess, so it's relevant to her and to her life; you could say it's her legacy. At least, the present owner should be mentioned if it's one owner; I'm a little dubious about the "Georgette Mosbacher + investors" notion. (Just as I was very dubious about all those Saudi princes; I was the one who removed them.) Anyway, if you have references that show that Mosbacher owns the company, please post links to those references right here on this page, so we can all read them. And conversely you, Juliet55, if you have references showing that Mawarid owns it, post them right here. Reliable sources, that's what should decide this. (ExcuseMeNYC, if you wish to continue discussing, please respond below, and sign by typing four tildes, ~~~~. The tildes are wikipedia magic code: they add the writer's signature and a timestamp, so we can tell who's talking and when.) Bishonen | talk 20:15, 26 May 2013 (UTC).

Again, this is NOT a company page. It is for a person. The only reason Revson and Revlon are relevant is because it is how she created her line and it was when she was alive, therefore its relevant to her history. Who owns the company now does not need to be mentioned on her page as she is deceased and no longer involved with this separate entity. All that needs to be known is that she started a line and was involved with it until her death. If anything, you can even remove that the line is now known as simply Borghese and based in NYC and simply keep that she was involved with the line "named after her" until her death. I will not be adding the Georgette Mosbacher references as they are not relevant to Marcella's history and you people keep removing them EVEN with numerous references cited, which is rather childish and not consistent with this websites protocols. ExcuseMeNYC (talk) 22:53, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

? Who are "you people"? I'm a Wikipedia administrator. The reason I removed the text you added in April was that you kept reverting without discussion, as can be seen in the article history: no response to Juliet's nor my attempts to speak with you on your different IP usertalk pages, no edit summaries, nothing on this article talkpage. These things will happen with new users who aren't used to how the site works, and I'm glad my removal + semiprotection (a technical measure which prevents IPs from editing the page) eventually persuaded you to create an account, ExcuseMeNYC. And I'm very glad to have now received some responses from you. I've asked if you're anything to do with the IPs 24.215.248.86 and 24.215.182.121. Since you've chosen not to reply, I'm going with the obvious assumption that you're all one person. I've now located the three references you added before, supposedly showing that Georgette Mosbacher owns Borghese cosmetics, and I'm afraid they're not very good. I list them here:

1. This one is a promotional statement about Borghese's products, signed by Mosbacher as CEO. There's nothing about ownership.
2. This video interview with Mosbacher is about business plans etc. I don't hear anything about ownership here either.
3. This one states she bought La Prairie, and that she's "president, CEO, and chairwoman of Borghese". It seems to prevaricate about ownership, with vague phrasing. "President" isn't synonymous with owner, as far as I know.[1]

Altogether, I've spent some time googling Georgette Mosbacher + Borghese, and I'm struck by the non-committal phrasing all over the internet as regards ownership. It keeps saying in interviews and feature articles that M bought and owned (and eventually sold) La Prairie; but, by contrast, I don't see either "bought" or any form of "own" used about her relationship with Borghese. I do see statements that she "heads" or "runs" it, congruent with the function of President. Why this distinction in the wording? It's very consistent, and you see it in Wikipedia's article Georgette Mosbacher also: she "purchased" La Prairie; by contrast she "is the CEO of" Borghese. Why do you suppose there's this consistent difference in wording, if she actually bought Borghese, the same way she bought La Prairie?

Hoovers is what I call a reliable source. Hoovers states about Borghese Inc. that ""President and CEO Georgette Mosbacher (also a well-known New York City Republican) holds a substantial equity stake in the company while the rest is retained by the original group of Saudi investors who purchased it upon Revlon's divestiture of the firm in 1992." Not altogether supportive of claims that G Mosbacher "bought" and "took ownership of" Borghese.

I'll have to consider a little further what's reasonable to put in the article about current ownership. If you have anything helpful to suggest, please feel free. You too, Juliet55, or anybody else. Bishonen | talk 20:23, 27 May 2013 (UTC).

I do not care if you are an administrator nor do I appreciate your condescending tone. I never addressed your accusations of me being the same person who made the previous edits as it was not relevant to my reasoning for posting here. For the record, no. It was not me. I know who made the edits. I created an account because this information was inaccurate and I needed to clarify. You obviously did not pay close attention to the interview with Georgette from the Wall Street Journal (which is definitely a reliable source) where the interviewer OPENS the segment by saying "you're a little different from most entrepreneurs I speak to, you actually went in and BOUGHT companies that were already in existence" and Mosbacher goes on to talk about how she turned around both La Prairie and Borghese and how its different than a start up, since she bought the companies. That was the whole point of the interview. Also, when someone is the Chairwoman, President and CEO of a company, they usually own the majority of shares, as your own research showed with the article you cited. Its been mentioned in a reference on the Princess Marcelle Borghese page already that Georgette is the owner (lifeinitaly reference). Everyone in the NYC cosmetics industry knows Georgette owns the company. I worked as a consultant for Borghese a few years ago and Georgette is most definitely the owner. Like the previous editor stated, she owns a majority stake in the company and the rest is retained by several individual investors. When you own a majority stake in a company, you control the company and its considered your company. The Saudi trading company distributes the products in Asia where Borghese does one third of its business. Being a distributor is not the same thing as owning the company. As it stands now, the article is fully acceptable as is. There is no need to mention the Borghese cosmetics company of today past knowing its still in existence. THIS IS A BIOGRAPHY PAGE FOR A PERSON AND NOT A COMPANY. So at this point any mention of the current management and ownership is not even relevant. You yourself said I raised a valid point when I initially said that. I will continue to edit this page as long as incorrect information is posted. Thank you. ExcuseMeNYC (talk) 03:09, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

One more point. Borghese cosmetics is a privately held company. Since it has more than one principle investor (like most privately held companies) they often do not disclose who the sole owner is. However, in this case they have disclosed that Georgette owns the majority, just like your own research discovered. I happen to know this for a fact since I have worked for them. Georgette has stated several times in interviews that there is a silent partner whom she does not know, but they own a smaller percentage than she does. Since Borghese is not a publicly traded company they are not likely to disclose who these investors are. Therefore, ONCE AGAIN my point is valid that mentioning the current owner of the company is both not relevant and, at this point, not even possible since you cannot provide anything to counter my knowledge that she indeed owns the company. ExcuseMeNYC (talk) 03:20, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

You have "knowledge" from personal experience that she owns the company, but no references that show it (and I'm nonplussed that you should say my own research shows she owns the majority of it). I've been contacted by other people who have "knowledge" from their personal experience that she doesn't own it, but also no references that show it. Wikipedia can't go by those kinds of knowledge. If you want to be taken seriously, please engage with the links I gave above and my comments on them. Meanwhile, please don't edit the page to the way you would like it. I've reverted your latest edit, as the current name and whereabouts of the company which was named after the princess are certainly relevant here. On another point, you might be interested in our guideline on conflict of interest: "Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals or of organizations, including employers. Do not write about these things unless you are certain that a neutral editor would agree that your edits improve Wikipedia.". I'm a neutral editor. If you're connected with the Borghese company or Georgette Mosbacher, please consider stating so on your own page. Bishonen | talk 09:44, 28 May 2013 (UTC).

Bishonen, its obvious to me based on your responses that YOU are the one who cannot be taken seriously. I have engaged with you regarding the references cited. Its also clearly obvious that you do not read my entire answer, but merely skim it as you ignore many valid points and references that I make in my answers to you. AGAIN, watch the interview with the Wall Street Journal (a reliable source). It is clearly stated in the beginning and during the interview that Georgette went in and BOUGHT both LaPrairie and Borghese and she then discusses how she turned them around and how its different than a start up. How can you miss this? Its in plain English and in a video no less. Also, I am not "editing the page the way I would like it", I am editing it to not include false information or irrelevant information for a biography of a person and not the history of a company. Lastly, I am neutral. I have not worked for Borghese cosmetics in years and have no current link to Georgette Mosbacher. I simply know the facts. And you are indeed the one who did your own research and turned up the Hoovers article that you yourself cited as a reliable source, which states that she owns a majority stake in the company. I explained, at length, how that can justify her ownership and that the other investors are not listed nor would they be since they are not majority shareholders. This will be my last argument with you and I will be sure to edit or remove information that is not correct. The article as it stands now is appropriate for a biography page. ExcuseMeNYC (talk) 22:27, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Well no. It is not clearly stated in the beginning and during the WSJ interview that Georgette went in and BOUGHT both LaPrairie and Borghese. At the beginning the interviewer merely says ‘you actually went in and bought companies that were already in existence’. She does not explicitly say that either Borghese or LaPrairie—the companies she asks Mosbacher to focus on—are companies in which she has a majority holding. As to the ‘during the interview’ phase I spotted no explicit reference to the ownership of the company. The Hoovers article certainly does not state that she owns a majority stake in the company. Did you read it? I realize that it will be frustrating for you, as a Wikipedia beginner, to find that the stuff that you are absolutely certain you know for certain has to be sourced to so-called reliable sources. But that is the way this place works. Would you be able and prepared to provide such sources? And would you be able to tell us, since I don’t doubt that you have information on the company, quite when she purchased it? Ian Spackman (talk) 01:20, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

HELLO? The whole point of the interview is that she is talking about the companies she BOUGHT and turned around! God, you people are dense. Bottom line, the ownership of the company is not even relevant anymore. This article is fine as is. Since everyone seems to agree this is about Princess Marcella Borghese and NOT a company page detailing the history of Borghese Cosmetics, its a moot point. Everywhere you go on the web, articles relating to Borghese cosmetics include only references to Georgette and nobody else and no parent company to Borghese cosmetics. So obviously, since its a private company, they are not disclosing the sole owner (even though it is Georgette). Since you people are ignoring the references cited and cannot come up with any others proving she DOES NOT own the company, then this is indeed a moot point as I already stated. End of story. ExcuseMeNYC (talk) 01:39, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

‘End of story’? Should I take that as a statement of resignation? In practice, of course, your lack of interest or ability to provide those reliable sources we so pedantically require—if that practice continues—means that you will find it difficult have any impact upon the contents of this article. (And my guess that you were knowledgeable about the topic seems rather to be disconfirmed by your inability to tell us when she purchased the company.) Not to worry: I am sure you will find more interesting things to do than editing Wikipedia. Ian Spackman (talk) 01:54, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Look smart ass, you keep missing my point. She bought the line in 2000 and I have not been engaging with you, but rather with Bishonen. The article now makes no mention of Georgette, her ownership of the company or any other information regarding the Borghese cosmetics of today other than its based in NYC and still exists. That is sufficient for a biography page. If you actually read my previous entries, I have been trying to explain how private companies will often not list a sole owner as is the case with Borghese. She owns more than 80% of the company, but that information is not something that can be made public in terms of posting documents since Borghese keeps that information confidential (which a private company can do). So your insistence that I provide proof at this point when I keep saying that this information is not relevant to this article is pointless. Can you provide reliable sources as to who the sole owner is or prove that Georgette does not own it? I know for a fact you cannot. ExcuseMeNYC (talk) 02:00, 29 May 2013 (UTC)