During that period, he dissuaded his employees from getting too close to fashion folk. Being a detached observer was preferable for interviewing and writing reviews. He also nursed doubts about the designers’ grasp of reality. “They’re all liars, liars,” he occasionally barked. Nevertheless, Saint Laurent was an untouchable. And sometimes it became nutsy. “He’s as strong as an ox,” Mr. Fairchild would declare after the frail couturier had literally slobbered down the runway.
Mr. Fairchild—or Mr. Frogchild, as Kate nicknamed him—was a curious mixture. In one way, he was very gallant, looking after the swans who’d been forgotten. Or offering unsolicited advice: “You should get married,” he told Diane von Furstenberg, eyeing her pantherlike legs stretched out at a fashion show. Or immediately contacting Marc Jacobs when financing fell through on the designer’s company. Clearly concerned, Mr. Fairchild’s squawk morphed into a soft and dulcet tone. Being hypersensitive, he knew how to handle the creative. Or playing the disapproving parent or uncle figure. When lunching at the Ritz Bar, he caught sight of Tom Ford’s hairy chest and announced, “Your shirt is buttoned too low.”
Then there was the other side, which led to his being called the “Ayatollah of Fashion” by Taki Theodoracopulos, or worst type of grown-up and spoiled child. If designers turned down Mr. Fairchild’s request (usually it involved getting advance info about their collections) he took it very personally, hence his feuds with designers Geoffrey Beene and Pauline Trigère. More often than not, Mr. Fairchild would take his revenge by barring them from Women’s Wear, then viewed as the all-important fashion bible.
When I arrived at Women’s Wear Daily, he still had that power and was annoyed when it was not respected. André Oliver, then the right-hand man of Pierre Cardin, had been discourteous with me, and Fairchild was furious. Later, there was the Oscar de la Renta debacle christened “Oscar of the Right Table–gate.” It was at a party given to celebrate his arrival at the house of Balmain. There were seventy tables. Oscar’s ladies—read: bejeweled beauties and powerhouses—filled up the first ten and I was put at table 69 with the Polish seamstresses and unknown foreign journalists.
“Why that little . . .” Mr. Fairchild said when he heard about my placement. A call was made to Oscar. “But John, I believe that any table that I’m sitting at is the right table,” he had purred. The designer oozed suave. But it was too much for Frogchild, who wasn’t afraid of a fight. “Oscar,” he boomed. “That’s the biggest load of bull . . .” And for a brief moment, the designer was christened “Oscar of the Right Table” chez Fairchild.
I watched my premier Valentino couture show in the front row, sitting next to Mr. Fairchild. It was July 1991. “Look at that suit,” he announced, clearly excited. “It has snap, crackle, and pop.” “Snap, crackle, and pop” meant that it was flawless. A suit that could be traveled in for ten hours and, because of the cut and choice of fabric, wouldn’t have a single crease. It was an invaluable lesson and an excellent way to be initiated to the high standards of the Italian-born couturier. A day later, I was put in the front row again at Chanel. “Good for you,” said Lucy Ferry, the wife of rock star Bryan Ferry. In fact, it was a question of politics. Having lost Kate Betts to Vogue, Fairchild was keeping up appearances.
The Chanel show, held at the Beaux-Arts, was sweltering, or “hot as Hades,” to use the favorite expression of Dennis Thim, Fairchild’s bureau chief. Yet it didn’t stop Chanel’s couture ladies turning up in their power tweed suits. Tiny and doll-like, they were practically melting. All apart from Paloma Picasso, the jewelry designer and daughter of the famous artist, who turned up in a stripy cotton Hermès shirtdress and gold sandals. “She looks chic,” I said. Fairchild remained tight-lipped. And I soon learned that he only ever voiced his opinion in the privacy of the car afterward.
When my mother’s New York friends heard that I was working for John Fairchild, certain of them were horrified. In their minds, he was the beast who created the infamous “in” and “out” list as well as masterminded cruel exposés. My mother, on the other hand, refused to hear a word against him, “I’m on the side of anyone who employs my children” being her party line.
Within days of arriving at Fairchild, I realized that while my colleagues in Paris were good-natured and funny, the New York office was different and even tricky on occasion. Mildly chippy, some seemed convinced that I did nothing in Paris but swan around swilling champagne and downing smoked-salmon hors d’oeuvres. That too—I was “deeply superficial”—but I was also never off the telephone, keen to fill the society or home interior pages. Sometimes my connections could surprise. The entertainment editor was put out that I’d befriended Molly Ringwald, the teen actress. After reading my piece, she called back and said, “We only want to know one thing, Natasha, did she or didn’t she fuck Warren Beatty?” This rather stopped me in my tracks. The same editor also called up asking if Marseilles was a museum. But on a power level, New York had the upper hand and needed to be endured. Occasionally, Patrick McCarthy, Fairchild’s unofficial dauphin, had to step in and intervene. However, as he once warned: “Natasha, if I brought you over for the New York collections, my office would eat you up for breakfast.” Naturally, I played nonchalant when he said this but secretly shook in my boots and vowed never to go near the place.
True, I was opinionated and irritating, but I had a much-valued secret weapon—social access, armed by the fact that I delivered religiously. And until the mid-’90s, when Patrick decided to do a 180-degree turn with W magazine and focus on Hollywood film stars as opposed to the exclusive chic of European society, that made me untouchable.
Fortunately, my premiere months at W demonstrated this. My first task was persuading Mollie, the then Marchioness of Salisbury, to give an interview, going with a set of photographs of her garden taken by Christopher Simon Sykes. Having turned down Jim Fallon, who ran the London office, she immediately agreed to my request. It helped that I knew her and her brood. Fairchild et al. were delighted, but Jim attempted his revenge. That often happened with members of the Fairchild dysfunctional family.
My next article concerned Loulou de la Falaise. She had just bought a nineteenth-century country house in Ile-de-France, and although it was far from finished, she agreed to have it photographed. A legendary fashion stylist, she was equally talented with interiors.
During the shoot, Loulou sped around. If she wasn’t moving furniture or arranging the wildflowers, she was picking herbs from the vegetable garden and supervising lunch. The article showed that the thoroughly chic Loulou was a country gal at heart, and Fairchild was delighted with the story. Loulou and her family—including her mother, Maxime de la Falaise; uncle Mark Birley; brother, Alexis de la Falaise; and niece Lucie de la Falaise—could do no wrong in his eyes. “They’re the real McCoy,” he said.
Nevertheless, my Volpi Ball coup eclipsed everything else. All summer long, le tout Paris, New York, and Milan had been talking about Giovanni Volpi’s ball for his goddaughter, Elizabeth de Balkany. Held at the beginning of September, at the height of the Venice season, it promised to be the jet-set event with billionaires, beauties, and ball gowns. It was very Andy in tone: he knew most of the contenders, had done portraits of quite a few, and used to go to Venice most summers.
Cristiana Brandolini, one of the Serenissima’s social powerhouses, had actually turned down a Warhol portrait. “It was much too expensive, nor was it quite my mind-set,” she says. However, she had admired the picture that Warhol had done of her brother, Gianni Agnelli, the influential automobile industrialist. “Andy would stay at the Cipriani hotel,” she recalls. “And I would notice him sitting in the Piazza San Marco. Now you see people looking strange. But then to see this pale man in this white wig who was photographing and photographing. It was funny. But Andy was way, way ahead of us. He knew and understood before we did.”
Regarding the Volpi Ball, Glynis Costin and Art Streiber were up against it. Since th
ey ran Fairchild’s Milan bureau, they were friendly with tutto il mondo, but Count Volpi was press-shy and refused to have journalists. And that’s when I trotted in on my Shetland pony. Giovanni was the half uncle of Dominique Lacloche. She gave me his cell number. I called him up and invited myself. He agreed, to my utter surprise and the shock of everyone else. It turned out he thought I was another Fraser, living in London.
Being a gent, he didn’t go back on his word. Indeed, wearing my elder sister’s red taffeta Bellville Sassoon gown, I went to the ball of the ’90s that was held in the Volpi family’s palazzo. It was my first time in Venice. I ate at Harry’s Bar. I saw Jacqueline de Ribes and other members of the International Best Dressed list close up, as well as the next generation of beauties. However, exciting as it sounded, the actual ball was a big fat anticlimax. The smart Italians only hung out with one another and rather stuck their noses up at the rest of us. I had never felt so excluded.
“These people are dreadful,” I remember saying to Dominique, who’d been brought up with most of them. “It’s because we don’t look the part”—professionals had not done our hair and makeup—“and they’re not interested in us,” she said. Still, I had never come across that before, being judged exclusively on my appearance.
Naturally, I didn’t report this to Glynis and Art, who were probably keen to hear the worst. Schadenfreude would have been human and oh-so-Fairchild-family–like. Instead, I made out that it was fantastic and that I had made tons of new friends. Behind my back, they then nicknamed me “the duchess.” If only! One genuine highlight had been watching Richard Avedon. He was taking photographs of Tatiana von Furstenberg and other nubile creatures for Egoïste, an elitist French magazine. Otherwise, the experience was a disappointment. My mistake was going with expectation. I thought it would be a Visconti version of the balls of my youth, but I was forgetting that I knew everyone at the English balls and that made a crucial difference.
An encounter with Fred Hughes had also been dire, bringing to mind the tragic undertones of Thomas Mann’s short story “Death in Venice” but without the romantic interest. Staying at the Gritti Palace, Fred had masterfully transformed the salon by switching the paintings with his own, covering the sofas with fabric, and using scarves to calm the lighting. Unfortunately, he was ensconced in a wheelchair and had become even more tempestuous.
While he was ordering tea, I had sneaked a raspberry tart from the plate of petit fours. Two minutes later, Fred noticed that it was missing and started freaking. He called the hotel management and accused the staff of stealing. Marisa Berenson, visiting at the same time, tried to soothe and steady him. Turning quite pink, I admitted that I had stolen the tart (no doubt made “all on a summer’s day”). “Well, why didn’t you say so, Natasha?” Fred said with renewed calm.
26 Warhol Land Continues to Haunt
My early years at Fairchild continued to be an extended version of Adventures in Warhol Land because I was often dealing with people who Andy knew, collected his work, or had even been painted.
In January 1993, on a trip to Saint Petersburg, Thomas Ammann, the art dealer and Andy intimate, was one of my fellow travelers. We were on a Stroganoff Foundation trip organized by Baroness Hélène de Ludinghausen. I had met Thomas through Fred Hughes and instantly admired the Swiss-German’s boyish looks and gentle elegance. Having worked for Bruno Bischofberger from 1971 to 1976, Thomas had gone off and become a successful art dealer. Andy trusted Thomas and even allowed him to rent the second floor of his house to sell Picasso paintings and other artworks. “It’s extremely unusual for a dealer and artist to be that close,” Vincent Fremont states. But Thomas was a one-off, “honorable, generous, and fun.” All this would be confirmed in Russia.
The Saint Petersburg trip promised to feature an unequaled W magazine crowd, meaning social, stylish, and super rich. Hélène de Ludinghausen, Mr. Fairchild’s dear friend, ran Yves Saint Laurent’s couture salon and knew everyone. Proving this, she rustled up esteemed art collectors like Monique Barbier Mueller, Anne Bass, Beth DeWoody, several South American tycoons, and Mark Thatcher, the son of Britain’s prime minister. Meanwhile, the cast of characters I knew were Andy’s former circle and included the newly married Barbara Allen Kwiatkowski, Bob Colacello, Wendy Stark, São Schlumberger, Florence Grinda, André Leon Talley, and the artist Ross Bleckner, who had come with Thomas.
Keen to have their Anna Karenina moment, all the ladies had brought their largest and most opulent fur hats and coats. The problem was that the weather was unseasonably warm. So each time a private tour to the Winter Palace or another incredible site was organized, a discarded stack of furs peeped out from the back window of our bus.
Within less than a morning, I reckoned that Thomas was the person to follow. At the Hermitage, he asked the group’s guide if the enormous reception room had been restored. “Yes, about nine years ago, with four kilos of gold leaf paint,” came the reply. In the State Russian Museum, I was introduced to the importance of Kandinsky and Malevich, even if Thomas was appalled by the conditions. The canvases were simply leaning against a wall, many upside down, without evidence of temperature control. “The paintings were handed out to us like potatoes,” Thomas said a little later on the bus. “No one seemed to know how to treat the works of art.” He then estimated that if they sold one of the masterpieces, it could properly renovate the ailing museum.
I could have listened to him all day, except his female friends were annoyed by my Ammann hogging. Thomas—dressed in an array of becoming turtlenecks and tweed jackets—was the most popular guy on the trip. Being from Women’s Wear and penning articles titled “Postcard from St. Petersburg,” I was Miss Must to Avoid. Thomas was too polite to let on, but Ross Bleckner later told a friend that everyone was “always trying to escape that girl from WWD.” Ignorance is bliss. To be honest, I thought everyone was fleeing from Mark Thatcher and his loud voice!
Besides, there were other dramas: Aeroflot airlines forgot André Leon Talley’s Kelly bags, custom-sized for his six-foot-six frame; Liz Mezzacappa’s fur coat caught fire in St. Nicholas Cathedral; Barbara Allen Kwiatkowski was mugged, her purse with $10,000 swiped from her hand outside the Hotel Europe; I ran up a huge telephone bill despite being warned that all calls were made via Helsinki; and then Rudolf Nureyev died, and so Bob Colacello had to leave.
Thomas managed to meet one of Nureyev’s best Russian friends, the scientist Liuba Myasnikova—the man’s connections were never-ending. He also encouraged me to go to St. Nicholas Cathedral, where the dancer’s life was being celebrated. “The mourning is something to witness,” he said. Inside the medieval cathedral, the loud sobbing was pretty upsetting. It was such an intense display of emotion. Six months later, Thomas would die of the same disease as Nureyev. It certainly wasn’t apparent that he had AIDS.
Fairchild was famously tightfisted with its staff, always counting pennies, but occasionally it went too far. When covering my first Lynn Wyatt birthday in 1992, I was put up in a wooden shack that resembled the Bates Motel, the South of France version. Maurice and Josephine Saatchi, who had given me a lift back in their Rolls-Royce Corniche, were aghast. The contrast between my personal circumstances and those I was professionally covering often defined extreme.
In 1980 Andy had gone to Lynn’s birthday party and was thrilled to be introduced to Johnny Carson and talk frocks to his beautiful wife, Joanna. At my first Wyatt do, I was placed between photographers Slim Aarons and Helmut Newton, and so it continued. Media attention has been paid to the Texan Rose’s face, hair, figure, and couture clothes. Yet Warhol’s portrait achieved in 1980 captured her grace, whatever the circumstances. Her guest list might have included Jack Nicholson, Joan Collins, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, and Roger Moore, but everyone, including yours truly, was treated in the same manner. In Lynn’s opinion, anyone invited was a star. Her attitude created a tremendous ambience. There was also Oscar, Lynn’s oil magnate husband, who did
not mince his words. I saw him turning to Liza Minnelli and saying, “Liza, you must be happy because when you’re happy, you’re thin.” Minnelli, wearing a rainbow-colored gown, smiled. “And when you’re unhappy, you’re . . . not,” he continued. She looked less at ease.
Diane von Furstenberg, another Andy subject, was also a skilled hostess. Le tout Paris, ranging from actresses to writers to Rothschilds, would pile into her apartment on the rue de Seine. Her parties were lengthy bohemian affairs where some guests would have supper in her salon and others would eat on her bed. Anything went, and it defined atypical.
I met so many people through Diane, or “Mrs. von Diller,” to quote the superagent Sue Mengers. Still, Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter proved to be the most professionally valid. In the fall of 1992, he came courting when I secured the story about São Schlumberger and her new apartment. It was a story that every important New York magazine, whether a fashion glossy like Vogue or an interiors expert like House & Garden, was panting over.
What happened was so Paris, so ’90s, and so New York media of that era. Using Gabhan O’Keeffe, a fairly outrageous Irish-born decorator, São had done up her new home. Having been overshadowed by the death of her husband, an unsavory love affair, and problems with her children, São was back with a force and was suddenly the talk of Paris and New York.
Naturally, there were two schools of thoughts: those who found the apartment vulgar—“the salon was like a torture chamber,” says one Parisian socialite—and those who admired the boldness. Gabhan delved into exaggerated detail and brilliant color in the same way that Mongiardino and other subtle masters avoided it. Still, it was news, and São flexed her muscles (read: feminine wiles) by turning down everyone’s request to photograph it. Being Fairchild-trained, or rather, having Mr. Fairchild breathe down my neck, I took the alternative route and put the focus on São.
After Andy Page 26