Austrian Princess Turned Fashion Designer Holds Court In Houston — The Story Behind the Dreamy AvA Looks

Philanthropist, conservationist and Austrian princess Ala von Auersperg Isham is holding court in the main salon of Houston’s Elizabeth Anthony store in Uptown Park. Reigning not as one might imagine of European royalty in a previous century, but as the artist and designer behind the dreamy AvA fashions. (She doesn’t use the princess title.)

There is little pretentious about this sophisticated femme who divides her time between homes in Newport, Rhode Island and the island of Antigua and apartments in Palm Beach and New York. Isham is here in Houston to meet with clients, welcome new ones and personally sell her effortless fashions designed for women of all ages and all sizes.

Isham inadvertently entered fashion design more than a decade ago after a designer friend saw one of her watercolor paintings and suggested they use the artwork for the fabric for a caftan. Inspired, she began creating paintings for fabric for floaty organza caftans for friends.

Eventually, a business was born focusing on women aged 35 and over.

“At a certain age women have buying power,” Isham says. “They want to look good. They are not lying down and playing dead. They deserve to look good and go out and have a great time.

“I love the idea of being able to dress a very broad range of women. I think every woman deserves to look good in clothes. So we go from double XS to Double XL which for a small company is unusual. I just love the idea of women looking great and having a good time.”

The fabric palette of sunny images, palm frond greens and ocean blues is inspired by nature, all painted by Isham whose artwork ranges between watercolor, tempera on panel and pencil on paper depending on her schedule. In addition to caftans, the AvA collection includes dresses, shirts, slacks, swimsuits, skirts and scarves all embracing a botanical theme.

“I have to be inspired by something in nature. I have to be able to look at something and I have to say ‘I like the shape. I like the geometry. I like the color.’ And do something with it,” Isham says. “Those are the colors that I am really attracted to. I tend toward the things that I like.”

As she points out, the AvA  fashions are designed for resort wear, for travel “which is a big component of what I do,” and are perfect for beach life, yachting and more. Think Newport, Palm Beach, Cabo and Lyford Cay. Plus the lifestyle of photos of  Slim Aarons.

Discussion of the inspiration for Isham’s designs leads to the influence of her mother Sunny von Bülow of Reversal of Fortune fame and her grandmother Annie Laurie Aitken. Isham’s mother Martha “Sunny” Crawford was first married to Austrian Prince Alfred von Auersperg, Isham’s father.

“I’m more influenced by the style of my mother and my grandmother and my aunt,” she says. “My mother and my grandmother were incredibly classically stylish women. Some of my mother’s clothes are in the very early collection of the Met Costume Institute. They were praised by Diana Vreeland.

“So I’m classical in the way I think about clothes.”

Speaking of her mother, the discussion turns to Christie’s Magnificent Jewels Auction featuring a number of pieces from Sunny von Bülow’s renowned collection. The auction is set for this June 11.

“I have a lot of jewelry from my mom and there are some pieces that I don’t wear, specifically the emeralds,” Isham says. “So I’m selling them in the Magnificent Jewelry sale which is really fun because I want them to be on somebody magnificent. I’m not going to wear them.

“My daughters are not going to wear them and I’m tired of them being in the safe. But I’m keeping the things that I like.”

Isham Goes Beyond Fashion

In response to her mother’s death after being in a coma for 28 years, Isham and her brother Alexander von Auersperg founded the National Center for Victims of Crime and the Brain Trauma Foundation (originally the Sunny von Bülow Coma and Head Trauma Research Institute).

Today, however, Ala von Auersperg Isham’s interests turn toward historic conservation and coral reef restoration. Isham serves on the board of trustees of the Newport Mansions Preservation Society. Her husband Ralph Isham is president of the members-only Mill Reef Club in Antigua, the island where research is being conducted on growing coral and then knitting it back into healthy coral reefs. The effort is to build resilient reefs that can survive in changing sea water conditions.