I thought these wonderful Southern meals gave me the fuel needed to speed-race through the editing of both the exhibit and the book. Mea culpa: While the heaping portions made me feel loved, my health spiraled right down the drain. My left leg became hard as granite, and I made constant visits to Memorial Health hospital in Savannah to deal with multiple ailments, including asthma.
I am just a sinner when it comes to food. I will never stop eating. This food addiction started from patterns in my childhood and the secret flowerless garden of abuse, where the trees did not dance as the breezes passed between them.
The Oscar de la Renta exhibit traveled to Paris and was shown in the Mona Bismarck Center, for three months. Anna Wintour and Bee came early one morning during the haute couture. Maureen Dowd flew to Paris to see it. And Suzy Menkes wrote a wonderful review of my efforts. Another milestone in my chiffon-trenches life.
—
Anna Wintour is a year younger than me, and our birthdays are only a few weeks apart. For years we exchanged gifts: I’d send huge, expensive bouquets from her favorite florist. She would send me flowers, sometimes accompanied by a handwritten note.
At Christmas, gifts were also exchanged. One year, she gave me a ten-volume hardbound set of all the known African American paintings and sculptures that exist in the Western Hemisphere. This was a very thoughtful gift, and one I truly loved.
Another year, she partnered with Annette and Oscar de la Renta and gave me a beautiful African low-throne, a bleached stool, from some tribe, that had been found at an East Side antiques store in New York. I still have it in my living room, piled with books, in front of Truman Capote’s sofa, which I bought at auction.
I remember getting generous gift cards to my favorite horticulturist, Rosedale Nurseries, in Hawthorne, New York. Anna Wintour—and Vera Wang—sent me so many gift cards to the nursery that I was able to furnish my garden in White Plains with hydrangea bushes, white cherry blossom trees, and huge rhododendrons.
In 2014, the Bunny Mellon estate sale went on for three days and made over fourteen million dollars at Sotheby’s. I bid by phone on a New England pine breakfront cupboard and presented it to Anna Wintour for Christmas. It was my most important gift, a testament to our relationship in life and career. She had the claw-foot tub removed from her first-floor guest bath and installed the floor-to-ceiling cabinet in its place.
In 2016, I sent her a beautiful yellow Regency upholstered armchair, which I won at auction at Doyle Galleries in Manhattan. A thank-you note, handwritten, was sent to my home address. She’s perfect in that old-fashioned way. But I have never seen it in her New York residence; I am sure it went to some guest room in her compound in Mastic, Long Island.
Extraordinary white nineteenth-century Wedgwood candlesticks, a fine gift I found at Irish antiques dealer Niall Smith, are always on her dining tables for formal dinners, including the fund-raising dinners she held for Barack Obama.
My last gift to her was from her favorite shop, John Derian. It was an antique neoclassical column in wood.
A person’s words and deeds can make an indelible impression upon the soul. You can make a person feel loved through the simplest things in life. It’s not the extravagant gifts that count. It’s the thought, the gesture behind it.
I used to present originally designed marzipan cakes, from Sant Ambroeus, to my special friends in New York at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Vanilla cakes with layers of marzipan frosting in pale mint green and bright fuchsia, with beautiful red cardinals perched on marzipan twigs. A specialist would be flown in from Milan and spend the entire months of November and December filling preorders.
One year, I ordered Lee Radziwill a fuchsia frosted vanilla and buttercream layer cake, with a special design I knew Lee would love: a portrait of President Obama. She loved the Obamas; when Barack ran for president, the first term, we both showed up at the New York offices to hand-deliver our personal checks of $2,800.
The day before Christmas, I picked up the marzipan Obama cake from the store on Madison Avenue, and on the way out I ran into Lee’s niece Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg.
She recognized me, flying down Madison, walking briskly, with this huge Sant Ambroeus box.
“What is that you have there?” she intoned.
“It’s a special cake and I am actually taking it to your aunt’s, for tomorrow’s Christmas party!”
“Why didn’t I get one?” she joked.
I had only met Caroline once, when I was introduced to her at St. Ignatius Loyola church, where I attended Christmas Eve midnight mass one year with Lee. Lee had worn a red wool A-line skirt, a black sweater, her favorite satin Prada belted coat with huge notched lapels, and low-heeled suede boots that were the height of elegance. Caroline walked up the main aisle and stopped to greet her aunt warmly, and we were introduced. Caroline’s boots were also quite elegant.
Lee made such a presentation of the cake at Christmas lunch the next day. She said to all her guests around the table, “This is the most original Christmas gift I’ve ever received in my life. It’s from André.” It felt wonderful to be able to give such a well-received gift to a woman like Lee, who had such exquisite taste, with access to chefs and the best foods. I spent a great fortune on that cake, as well as on cakes for Annette de la Renta and Catie Marron.
Marc Jacobs, who was Lee’s great friend, often spoiled her for her birthdays, in gratitude for her friendship and their shared extraordinary taste. One year, Marc gave Lee an extravagant Giacometti sculpture for her anniversary.
I said to her, “What do you mean Marc gave you a Giacometti sculpture for your anniversary?”
“Of course it was not the seven-foot-tall Giacometti,” she said.
It was coffee table size, yet it was original. Lee immediately went out in Paris, had it appraised, and probably sold it. I never saw it in any room of her New York or Paris apartment. She was so exacting in her taste!
XV
When Diana Vreeland, the great empress of taste and style, became a consultant to the Costume Institute, she invented costume exhibits as they exist today, from her first, 1973’s The World of Balenciaga, to her last as directrice, Dance. She began holding the Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan and turned it into the most important social event on the fashion calendar. Eventually, it became known as the Met Gala.
My first Met Gala was the second one ever, in December 1974, when I volunteered for Mrs. Vreeland. The theme was Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design. I was not seated at the event, as I was working, but I still was able to attend the cocktail and post-party in the museum.
Escorting Mrs. Vreeland that night was her friend Jack Nicholson. She wore her beautiful black silk velvet Madame Grès robe de style and her Dal Co’ of Rome red court shoes, with the extravagant Regency bows.
Cher made a splashy entrance down the escalator in her now-legendary Bob Mackie jumpsuit, an illusion of beads and bird-of-paradise plumes. (Years later, I managed to bus an entire choir from a Baptist church in Harlem to the Met Gala; when Cher walked in, we both joined the front row and began beating tambourines with the choir.) In December 1976, Diana Vreeland was escorted to the ball by the brilliant American designer Bill Blass. Spotting me in the Great Hall, Mrs. Vreeland summoned me to her basement office, where we three swigged down two shots of Dewar’s scotch whiskey (she kept a bottle in her desk). After, Oscar de la Renta saw me standing on the sidelines during the pre-cocktail hour and simply had a chair pushed to his table and squeezed me into the dinner.
Under Anna Wintour’s reign over the Met Gala you can be assured that would never happen. My invitation to the Met Gala under Anna’s rule was as a staffer. I never got to pick my seat—well, only once, for the Charles James exhibit, when I asked to be seated with my friend George Malkemus. That was the year the Costume Institute became the Anna Wintour Costume Center.
Only three times in two decades was I allowed to escort a friend to the gala: Pat Altschul in 2005 (the exhibit was The Hous
e of Chanel; she purchased a vintage Chanel haute couture dress that once belonged to São Schlumberger), Naomi Campbell in 2006, and Whoopi Goldberg in 2010, when both she and I were dressed in custom looks by Ralph Rucci.
Tom Ford so graciously made most of my Met Gala looks for nearly seven years. For the Poiret: King of Fashion exhibit, he made a floor-length, fur-trimmed, gold embossed coat, inspired by a Poiret design. For the Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons exhibit, I had a floor-length silk faille court coat made, with a thirty-foot-long train.
Prior to Tom Ford, Nicolas Ghesquière, of Balenciaga, made me incredible full-length court coats and cloque silk capes, inspired by capes the late master Cristóbal Balenciaga had designed for his female clientele.
For five years, I was assigned to the top of the Metropolitan Museum of Art steps, to chat up celebrities on live-stream video for Vogue. From my seated perch, I would wait as Vogue staffers worked in relays, on walkie-talkies, telling me who was arriving on the red carpet and which personality was approaching the top of the stairs. They would arrive, and presto! We got crackin’, as Mrs. Vreeland used to say!
These social greetings, fused with questions on matters of style and dress, received high praise. There was Jennifer Lopez, stunning in a Valentino couture dress, with her fiancé, Alex Rodriguez, the baseball star, a veritable walking volcano of hot handsome maleness. I also spoke to Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, former ambassador to Japan and niece of my best friend, Lee Radziwill. P. Diddy actually stopped and kissed my hand. Serena Williams twirled in her emerald-green Donatella Versace dress. Rihanna stopped and bent down to kiss me in her Comme des Garçons Alice in Wonderland velvet cake of a dress.
People responded to my warmth and kindness, my gentleness. Even people who didn’t know me would quietly stand in line to come chat.
Anna loved the segments and praised me for them.
There were many remarkable moments during the Met Galas, but two stand out as the most exceptional.
The first was when Beyoncé showed up, unexpectedly, in 2012.
Beyoncé usually comes up the steps at the Met flanked by publicists who don’t grant you access even if you represent Vogue. Even if you’re standing on the steps, doing interviews for Vogue, there’s no chance to talk to her.
I was sitting on ground level, in my beautiful hand-embroidered silk Tom Ford coat, and Vogue’s Jill Demling told me Beyoncé had, at the last minute, decided to come.
“Who told you this?” I said.
“We’re talking to her people. She’s fitted a dress and she likes it and decided she wants to come.”
“Is Jay-Z coming?” I asked.
“We’re not even sure yet if she’ll show!”
As the crowd started to work its way inside, there was no Beyoncé. The young Vogue assistants gave me blow-by-blow accounts: when Beyoncé was leaving her residence, how soon she was to arrive. It was not guaranteed that I was receiving the proper information! But I waited. I didn’t want her to pull up and not have anyone to attend to her. And just around eight-thirty, as the dinner bell was ringing inside, a huge black Mercedes van rolled up to the curb.
Beyoncé was escorted by a small army of style-squad assistants, and—amazingly— only one publicist. The dress was Givenchy couture, by Riccardo Tisci, a nude illusion embroidered black dress with gloves attached at the shoulders. Beyoncé must have looked at that dress and decided she needed to be seen wearing it in front of the adoring press. It looked like she was covered in a spray of floral sprigs, with a lot of bareness in the strategic optical zones.
All the other VIPs had already walked up the red carpet. I said hello and told Beyoncé I’d escort her up the steps. With thanks and grace, she accepted. She seemed happy that I had waited for her. Slowly we walked up the many steps, and I gently encouraged her to stop and speak to various reporters. She did stop, and then struck a pose for the photographers. Her formation on the red carpet was without parallel. To the left, to the right. When we got to the top of the steps, she glided, like a beautiful swan, into the dimly lit main hall of the museum and was escorted off to dinner.
In those moments, I felt truly alive. There went the American dream at its very best.
My heart was full of pride.
The other exceptional moment? Well! I had a full emotional meltdown the year Rihanna unfurled herself at the Met Gala.
The theme for 2015 was China: Through the Looking Glass, a masterpiece of a show, curated by Andrew Bolton. It was one of my best performances of red carpet interviews. I spoke with Nicole Kidman, stunning in a gossamer Alexander McQueen spangled chiffon dress with a floor-length cape by Sarah Burton. And I interviewed Lupita Nyong’o, with her beautiful African-inspired coiffure.
But the truly outstanding moment: Rihanna in a magnificent Guo Pei cape, mandarin yellow and edged completely in luxurious fox fur, also dyed mandarin yellow!
Underneath, she wore Manolo Blahnik heels and a simple bustier top with a brief skirt.
Rihanna arrived exactly on time and slowly did her RiRi formation, giving the paparazzi what they wanted. As she climbed and posed, eight tuxedo-clad trainbearers carefully arranged the coat in a dramatic pool of fabric, spangles, and fur. The coat expanded, like a wingspan, across the entire width of the carpeted steps.
Rihanna is forever in the annals of the Met. A real-life dream. The power of a woman of color, ascending to her deserved moment in the sun. She outshined every single star that night. It was glorious to behold.
—
Tom Ford, the titan of style, is the American designer who most aligns himself to the great legendary talents, Halston and Yves Saint Laurent. His work explodes, like fireworks over the skies on the Fourth of July.
Nothing ambiguous, murky, or indecisive about Tom Ford. He is a virtuoso in terms of his professional efficacy. He became creative director for an almost bankrupt Gucci in 1994; by 1999, the brand capped off at an estimated four billion dollars in global sales.
That year, Tom also began designing for Yves Saint Laurent, with the blessing of Pierre Bergé and Yves himself. Between the two powerhouse brands, Tom would be responsible for sixteen collections per year, men’s and women’s.
For his debut Yves Saint Laurent show, Betty Catroux sat in the front row, and Tom dedicated his collection to her. Tom blasted out Betty Catroux looks with ease, as well as his version of the romantic, feminine side of Yves Saint Laurent.
As Tom’s star rose, Yves grew resentful. “The poor man, he does what he can,” Yves said in the press. Tom told me over dinner at the Carlyle Hotel that he has terrible letters in his possession, handwritten to him by Yves. After one particular show, Yves wrote: “In 13 minutes you have managed to destroy 40 years of my work. ” Tom won’t reveal any further contents but assures me they are the meanest and most vicious letters he has ever received in his lifetime.
When he left YSL to start his own brand, Tom continued to be inspired by Betty Catroux. I especially love his version of a smoking, circa 2018, with a structured jacket with broad notched lapels in contrast silk twill, and only one sleeve. Makes it sexier, more daring. Modern.
The built-in confidence Tom Ford possesses must have already existed when he was a young child growing up in Texas. He admits the first time he was with a man was his first night at Studio 54. If whatever he discovered at Studio 54 had anything to do with the man he is today, what a great awakening that must have been. Everything has come full circle now. He purchased Halston’s Paul Rudolph–designed house, though he told me he does not plan to duplicate the Halston lifestyle. And he still has quite a few Warhol paintings, including a tiny white-on-white Rorschach, autographed by Andy, to Halston.
When being interviewed by The New York Times, Tom told Maureen Dowd that he planted a black garden at his London residence. Black tulips and calla lilies. He loves black. He loves black suits and hard, tight shoes, also black, and he drives around London in a sleek black custom-made car: Everything in the car is black on black. His hair gets help
and is raven black. He compares it to the great empress of style, Diana Vreeland. He thinks about death constantly. He once planned on designing his own black sarcophagus but now has decided on quick cremation, to avoid the messiness of decay.
Nothing is by chance; he seems to be on jet engine energy, high acceleration 24/7.
And he makes it all seem fun. People respond to his work. His clothes are youthful, sophisticated, and accessible. When First Lady Michelle Obama went to Buckingham Palace for an official state dinner, Tom custom-made a beautiful white evening dress. It was a completely brilliant choice.
After a hiatus of four years, Tom Ford made a comeback of sorts in 2010, with a show that seemed like a brand-new dynamic. The show was “great fashion,” as Cathy Horyn, New York Times fashion critic, said the day after, in her review. It took place in the small ground-floor salon of his just-opened flagship store on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. It seemed like the old days when fashion, especially high fashion, was shown in small salons, in Paris and New York.
Tom Ford wanted to make a splash, and he did. He took his address book and asked some of his celebrity friends and models to walk in his show; each would only have to wear one look. Two front rows were jammed against a small path as runway. As they walked, spectators, like Elizabeth Saltzman of Vanity Fair and Sally Singer of Vogue, who didn’t grow up with salonlike fashion showings, sat on the front row and smiled.
I remember that show so well because I stood against the back wall. I didn’t want to look like the giant on the front row, obstructing the view of Lilliputians next to me. And I also didn’t want to be body-shamed by the grand presence of the Vogue phalanx of power.
From my vantage point in back I could see everything, from the shoes to the tip of the white fedora Lauren Hutton wore, with a white pantsuit right out of Saint Laurent’s magic alchemy of trouser suits. Tom Ford himself, dressed in his uniform of white shirt, black tie, and black suit, narrated the whole show, which was the way fashion was in the old days in Paris.
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