subscribe to style file blog via RSSnan for sale
September 28, 2007 6:07 pm
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re all aware by now that the term “socialite” doesn’t mean what it used to, and that it’s applied to any sample-sized girl willing to swan around a store party in a borrowed dress. But two years ago, the world lost a woman who was, with her couture gowns and paid-for charity tables, the epitome of what a socialite could be. That was San Francisco-born Nan Kempner, of course, and she wore her socialite status like a badge of honor on the lapel of her YSL couture Le Smoking. Since her death in the summer of 2005, her closet—which she herself attested was more an art collection than a wardrobe—has lived on, first at the Costume Institute’s 2006 exhibition American Chic and, starting on Monday, at Christie’s, which will be auctioning off some of her designer pieces to raise money for the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The sale will include both day- and eveningwear, from Michael Kors jumpsuits and Fendi cowboy boots to some of the Chanel, Oscar de la Renta, and Carolina Herrera evening gowns (even couture!) that toured the country in the Costume Institute exhibit. It’s a three-day event, and any hopeful girl-about-town should duly note it in her agenda. If there was ever a woman to learn how to be fabulous from, it was Nan.
tags:
