Derring-do doesn't hurt, either. In the s, she wore a new style -- a pantsuit -- to dinner at La Cote Basque restaurant, where the dress code forbade women in pants. Stopped at the door by Madame Henriette, Kempner yanked off the pants, handed them to her husband and told Madame, "I hope you like this better. Last year, she flashed the crowd -- inadvertently -- at a gala at the Metropolitan Museum when someone stepped on the train of her Valentino ball gown and tore a buttoned fabric "trapdoor," exposing her behind.
She loves the way Nicole Kidman looks "only she can wear John Galliano and look good in it" ; the way her friend the Countess Isabelle D'Ornano, a Sisley cosmetics executive, pulls herself together "everything looks like a Polish ethnic look" and thinks her San Francisco friends Frances Bowes, an art collector, and Gretchen Leach, the wife of the American Ambassador to France, look "marvelous," too. In power elite circles, clothes are nothing without someplace to wear them.
Kempner's closet gets a workout -- lunches at Swifty's, La Grenouille and Cafe Boulud, black tie galas for American Ballet Theatre, cocktail parties for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, vacations and even business trips to Marrakesh for Harper's Bazaar and to the homes of her globe-trotting friends for her coffee table book, "R.
At home, she's famous for lowbrow Sunday night spaghetti buffets for friends coming home from a weekend in the country, and for grand dinners for grand causes, such as the dinner for Princess Diana in , when Di's clothes were auctioned for charity by Christie's in New York. The secret to a great party, said Kempner, who has been to thousands, is not lavish menus, place settings and flowers, but "imagination and great friends.
Her favorite party naturally was her 50th wedding anniversary their marriage survived a separation and other ups and downs. The intimate evening for was held two years ago at New York's Botanical Gardens. Tables were set with votives and ivy, a reported 40, lights twinkled overhead, Sammy Goz and his orchestra flew in from Paris and friends such as floral designer Carolyne Roehm wore a gown with sleeves made of gardenias, because the invitation asked guests to wear flowers.
Kempner seems cool, sophisticated and confident. Why then does she though hardly alone in this regard require continued validation in print? Why not be a character? Never has anyone done so much with so little. The problem is, once you've had a taste of it, it's wonderful.
Still, she draws attention wherever she goes. Lunches and dinners already are being scheduled for the Kempners in the event they come, as planned, to California this summer. Ultimately, Nan Kempner managed to do what a lot of older women can't, which is to wear contemporary clothes with elegance and dignity. She never looked absurd - ever. An unstoppable figure who once attended the couture shows sporting a cleverly disguised black eye and bruised knees the Manolos had a tussle with the pavement , Kempner knew how to live.
Nan was wearing this incredible Lacroix black-and-white striped couture jacket with black pants - a kind of homage to Toulouse-Lautrec. So chic. It was only later that I realised she was trundling along with her oxygen machine.
Despite her lifelong obsession with fashion, Nan Kempner was adamant the final decision would be left to the Almighty. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. More about Authors. Such insouciant stories were a wow. Remember that s legend of a socialite who was stopped at the door of a chic restaurant because she was in a trouser suit?
That was Nan Kempner in a St Laurent tunic over pants. She took off the bottom half on the spot, gave it to her husband, and flaunting the top as a minidress over racehorse legs, warily sat to dine. Never has anyone done so much with so little. As she would go "to the opening of a door", there were decades of lunches, galas and parties worldwide, her favourite being her 50th wedding anniversary, catering for people at the New York Botanical Gardens.
Although by then accessorised with a portable oxygen tank, she attended Ronald Reagan's funeral, and dished the dirt on it with the rest of the girls next day. Two women in an Armistead Maupin story propose a wax museum of society so that future generations will know what Nan Kempner was like. It took up a whole closet in the Crillon.
I put them on backwards this morning, and they are just fabulous this way. She could wear them, she could afford them, and she was daring in her way of dressing. These were looks from the runway, but in a combination that she picked out. She was never overdressed or underdressed. She was a good, able skier. She got dressed up in the most peculiar clothes. One ski vest had sequins and ostrich feathers on it. She loved the history of fashion, which was decidedly more European, but she could Americanize it, put what I would call a more American touch.
The tomboy in her would allow her to look casually elegant all the time. She looked like she was a good friend of your older sister or somebody. Comfortable, relaxed, and with a twinkle that invited you to get closer. First of all, listen, she was so thin.
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