Ebba de la Gardie was a journalist and a reporter for the dailies Stockholms Dagblad and Stockholms-Tidningen as well as for the cultural magazines Saisonen and Arte et Marte. She is reputed to be the first Swedish high-society reporter.
Ebba de la Gardie was born at Oretorp in 1867. Oretorp was a manor which at that time belonged to Maltesholm castle, just south of Kristianstad. Her parents were Count Axel Otto de la Gardie and his wife Fredrika Christina Falkenberg af Bålby. Ebba de la Gardie’s columns in Saisonen occasionally described her childhood memories of parties at the manor with countless guests and masquerade balls and games. From 1903 onwards Ebba de la Gardie was registered as living in Stockholm, at Majorsgatan in Östermalm.
During the early 1900s Ebba de la Gardie began to write for the dailies Stockholms Dagblad and Stockholms-Tidningen. She has become well-known for introducing ‘high-society’ reporting into Swedish newspapers around the year 1900. She was also active, for over 10 years, as a fashion reporter for the highly-reputed journal Saisonen, from 1916-1925. Her first fashion reports were written for Stockholm-Tidningen under the pseudonym Svart och hvitt (black and white). Her byline in Saisonen was Comtesse G. She cast a sharp and critical eye on the excesses and necessities of fashion. She also wrote knowingly about lace, which at that time was an expensive handcrafted product and represented a highly prestigious area of expertise.
Letters written by Ebba de la Gardie to her friends Ulla Piper and Jeannie Lundegårdh in the early 1900s reveal how often she moved between addresses. In 1907 she moved in with the Hintze family at Majorsgatan 9. She then lived at Brunnsgatan 6 until she settled at Narvavägen 8 in 1910, where she stayed for 10 years. She also had home help there for several years and appeared to enjoy a seemingly comfortable lifestyle. Her correspondence also reveals that she had a summer house at Rosenhill on Djurgården.
Ebba de la Gardie died in 1928. She is buried in the family grave at the Östra Sönnarslöv old cemetery.
