Simone Tata — the elegant, soft-spoken yet formidable business leader who transformed Lakmé into India’s most recognisable beauty brand and later laid the foundation for modern fashion retail with Westside — passed away on Friday morning at Breach Candy Hospital after a brief illness. She was 95. Born in 1930 in Geneva as Simone Dunoyer, she grew up amid the scenic calm of Switzerland before fate brought her to India in 1953 as a tourist. It was during this visit that she met industrialist Naval Tata. The two married in 1955, and Simone Tata embraced Mumbai as her permanent home — a city whose business and cultural landscape she would reshape over the decades. She is survived by her son, Noel Tata, now chairman of Tata Trusts, and is remembered with deep affection by her stepson, the

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