by Julie D. Andrews
| She’s now an Upper East Side legend: Sleek. Clever. Sophisticated. And, she had an eye for style that landed her in the fashion Hall of Fame.
For more than 45 years, she and husband Thomas (“Tommy”) called a 16-room duplex on Park Avenue and E. 79th St. home. Before emphysema took her life in 2005, Nan Kempner, a bona fide member of the power elite, could regularly be seen lunching at Swifty’s (the social set hot spot on Lexington Avenue and E. 73rd St.) or stocking up on haute couture along the boutiques flanking Madison Avenue. She was a collector of fashion, having during her lifetime amassed the nation’s largest haute couture wardrobe.
Now, you can catch a glimpse of her bespectacled garments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit “Nan Kempner: American Chic.” |  | | Today, Nan Kempner would have smiled. The Grace Rainey Rogers auditorium brimmed with chatter as a sizeable crowd awaited Harold Koda, curator in charge of The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to begin the “From Client to Muse” talk exploring the relationship between Nan Kempner and her designer-of-choice, Yves Saint Lauren. The film “Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times” directed in 2002 by David Teboul followed the talk.
“When Mr. Kempner first walked through the exhibit and heard Cole Porter, he said ‘Oh no, this sounds much too old’” said Koda.
When, said Koda, he asked Mr. Kempner which musical selection would be better, Mr. Kempner responded: “It has to be more Studio 54 … more ‘I Love to Boogie’. That’s what Nan would have wanted.”
And so, walking through the exhibit feels a bit like walking through Bloomingdales, says Koda, which is more fitting. | | A captivating photograph of Nan Kempner wearing a long evening gown, and wrapped in a cascading yellow silk cape, then appeared on the screen along with a succession of other photos of her, looking about a size two, or at most, a four, in an array of flowing gowns at the society events she frequented.
“At our largest party of the year, you can always tell who has borrowed their dresses and who owns them,” said Koda.
He went on to describe how it was apparent that Nan Kempner owned her dress when one year she entered the party during a rainstorm gingerly holding the train in her hand until she was safely indoors. Then, she let the cape drop to the museum floor making for a grand entrance.
For Nan Kempner, said Koda, the key to style was looking “artificially relaxed.” So, it only made sense that she would become enamored with the style of Yves St. Lauren who saw the future of design being less fussy and more pręt-a-porter. |  | |
THE REEL SAINT LAURENT
Contrary to his happy-go-lucky and vibrant jet-set fashions modeled on the Paris runways, the Yves St. Lauren shown in Teboul’s film is a man rife with consternation and melancholy, an uber-creative designer riddled with self-doubt.
“It’s this extreme sensitivity that gave me this ability,” he said into the camera with haunting eyes as he puffed on a cigarette and sat cross-legged.
“And, it is this exaggerated sensitivity that eats away at me. To achieve this is painful. You have to move through the clouds to get to the light,” said Laurent.
His fascination with the couturier’s shop began early. As a youth, he would draw up mock receipts for pretend customers.
It was that initial love affair with the craft itself, not the ensuing glory, that kept him engaged and led him to make a name for himself on Paris runways.
In one snippet of an interview, said Lauren: “Je detest la bourgeoisie,” candidly into the camera. Still later, “Je detest le snobisme d’argent.” And, one of his employees described having to go to house and pull the designs out of him in the later years.
Laurent mentioned Chanel over and over again, showing a near obsession with this designer he truly admired. He mentioned the word style repeatedly throughout the film, setting a clear distinction between a fashion and a style. It was clearly his desire to define a style that drove him to design. Fashions are fleeting, he said, whereas style is not. “The main thing,” said Laurent, “is to last.” And, last he did.
From his lushly vegetated Algerian origins (where he said nostalgically in the film he spent the most joyful days of his life) he headed to Paris as a 16-year-old boy. After showing his drawing at Vogue magazine, he won a meeting with Christian Dior himself – an unheard of feat for a boy his age.
And yet, the life of the designer had not been one of unending bliss. He was openly homosexual from a young age at a time when homosexuality was not entirely embraced by society. And, when he initially parted ways with Dior, he opened a modest shop with his would-be long-term lover Pierre Berge and a meager staff of four. Photos taken from that time and shown in the film depict a RentLauren never without his white couturier coat and thick-rimmed glasses, looking serious and concentrated at the drawing board. In his prime, Lauren is said to have created a fashion line of 1,000 drawings in two weeks.
“When I pick up a pencil, I don’t know what I’ll draw. I start with a face. It is never planned,” said Laurent.
“When you are finished you go and do something else,” he said. “But, you always come back to paper and pencil.”
Laurent set out to add male elements of style to feminine dress.
Attitude can be achieved through the type of fabric chosen, said Laurent, and the added flourishes such as pockets, can create a more self-assured look when a woman stands with her hands in the pockets.
“I noticed men were more confident in the way the way they wore their clothes. I wanted to try and give women confidence through their clothes,” said Laurent.
And, push limits he did. Lauren was the first designer in Paris to feature black models on the runway, and it was Lauren who made a three-piece suit meticulously tailored for a woman.
Perhaps, it was this shared disregard for social norms that gave way to the instant connection with the client-cum-muse Nan Kempner. When in the 1960s Nan Kempner was stopped at the door of a sophisticated restaurant for wearing a trouser suit, they were no other than St. Laurent tunic over pants she was wearing. On the spot, she removed the pants, handed them to her husband, and sauntered to her dinner table sporting only the top of the suit as a mini tunic. | | AMERICAN CHIC: THE EXHIBIT
Winding through the exhibition itself, Nan Kempner’s style is readily apparent. She was elegant, bearing a strong Francophile influence, and carefree and casual, bearing an all-American influence and bred irreverence.
As you curve around the exhibit, you see the vivid jet-set style in bright bikinis, straw hats, and sheer beach wraps worn during winter holidays in the Dominican Republic and the lavender knitted sweater dress and furry boots in which she trekked through the Gstaad snow.
A portrait of Nan Kempner, painted by Andy Warhol in 1972, hangs on the wall. The American spirit, insouciance, and excess of her time can be felt in the music, the clothes, the art. The flowing fashions represent a bygone era of disco, good times, extravagance. |  | | The most frequently recurring element in her wardrobe, however, was the tailored suit. One hanger after the next filled the racks of the display closet with tweed blazers of every fit and color. Coco Chanel. Jean Paul Gaultier. Oscar de la Renta. Valentino. The fashion gang’s all there. | | A peek behind the racks of blouses and blazers gives way to endless pairs of shoes and boots. It’s a shame you can’t see the shoes and handbags — tucked away behind the closet shelves and racks – more closely.
As soon as Nan Kempner joined the Junior Counsel at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she earned instant celebrity status as a member of the Upper East Side social elite. She had a remarkable fundraising ability, which she put to good use. Over a thirty year period, she helped raise more than $75 million for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. From this neighborhood, she and her husband raised three children, Tommy, Lina, and James. Her knack for setting trends was widely recognized. It’s been said that she was one of the first women to undergo modern cosmetic surgery. Said Diana Vreeland, the well-known Vogue editor, “There is no such thing as a chic American woman. The one exception is Nan Kempner.” |  | | It’s 5:00p.m. The museum is set to close. “Macho, Macho Man” streams from the speakers. Throngs of museum visitors, pointing at handbags and marveling at shimmering beaded pullovers make their way to the exit. Nan Kempner had style, that is a given. And one could say she defined the age of her time – and the glory days of the Upper East Side – like no other. With the death of Nan Kempner died too a part of the grandeur that once solely defined of the Upper East Side.
EXHIBITION DETAILS
The "Nan Kempner: American Chic" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Avenue; 212-535-7710) will run through March 4, 2007. Exhibition Tours are on Tuesdays through Saturdays, through March 3 at 1:45p.m. Museum admission is $20 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. Click here for more information. |
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