In his example, and in his standards as a sinner saved by grace, I come home. I have the option to come home, any given Sunday morning, or even on a weekday at Bible study or a prayer meeting. I feel strong when I leave the sanctuary and I feel so much love, my spirit overflows.
Recently, I realized that in my seventies, my greatest joy is to wake up, say my prayers, and be kind. I try to be kind to everyone I encounter; sometimes I miss the beat.
I must be kind to even the stranger who asks for a photo with me. I must be kind to someone older than I, by opening the door. I must let women go before me through the revolving door. I thank God for my grandmother’s silent love and for Diana Vreeland’s exuberant outbursts of love and affection.
When I am overwhelmed with feelings of emptiness and deep sadness, when the day begins and ebbs into dark blues, I have life-enhancing stratagems to make the day a better one. I begin each day in prayers for my friends and loved ones. I learned this from my grandmother, who would pray out loud seated on the edge of her bed. Then I ring up my friend Sandra Bernhard, who helps me sort out the ills and the cracks. This is a near daily dose of SB, who calls me the oak tree of her life. She is measured and doesn’t know how much I depend on her for her sense of balance.
When I am really feeling helpless, I can call my friend Alexis Thomas, a deacon of the church, and she will stop whatever she is doing and pray with me by telephone. She might be at home or work, and she will stop and say an eloquent prayer, based on scripture, invoking my name and my needs. Tears well up in my eyes when she prays by the Bluetooth in her ear while driving. In a major crisis, Reverend Butts will get on the telephone and we pray together. My faith and my church life are paramount to my wellness.
In Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Quasimodo, the bell keeper, shouts out, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”
That resonates in my life, as I have always, to the very moment I pen this, been afraid of real life. Real life for so long has been one of selected darkness. But the sun eventually shines. I dreamed of the life I have lived and I survived with dignity and grace. After all, my ancestors survived the original sin of this great country, slavery, the injustice of having to suffer racism and survive. If this country can survive all the injustices, what is my plight and my burden? I think it is a true wonder that I have come this far.
I have always feared life. I love living and I love looking to the endless skies. The world can’t hurt me. No one can hurt me when I live in the circle of faith, love, and prayer.
It gives me unbridled joy to give love.
I always wanted love.
BEST-DRESSED LIST
Based on my decades of observation and social interactions, including serving on the official International Best-Dressed List judges’ committee, under the auspices of the late Eleanor Lambert (as well as current officers Reinaldo Herrera, Graydon Carter, and Amy Fine Collins), I offer my personal best-dressed lists for women and men. The main requirements for my lists are: sartorial uniqueness, consistent style, personal achievement, and a high moral code, which leads to high standards in dress. And so, I present, in no particular order:
WOMEN
ANNA WINTOUR: Only when she is dressed in Chanel haute couture. Due to her profession, and background, she sees dressing well as a moral duty. As a global vision of fashion, she is loyal to Chanel’s venerable and timeless elegance.
ANNE BASS: She had the most elegant wardrobe of any woman I ever met: couture Valentinos, Chanel, Diors by John Galliano, and the ultimate Yves Saint Laurent. She was more than her couture choices; she was a great cultivated patron of the ballet and also a great grandmother, who decided to shelve her couture worth millions, in her numerous closets in numerous homes, and wear Prada!
ANNETTE DE LA RENTA: She has worn the best of Paris and has rows and rows of Saint Laurent couture in her closets, as well as her husband’s couture. In her youth, she loved Madame Grès. Her favorite uniform: simple Chanel couture dresses, or an old Fendi shearling coat with suede trousers and above-the-knee Manolo Blahnik boots. She inspired Karl Lagerfeld.
BIANCA JAGGER: Decades of great style, from her YSL wedding suit, with a big soft floppy fedora, to crinolines and ball dresses. Christian Dior by Marc Bohan, Zandra Rhodes, Halston, Norma Kamali, Tom Ford, and Valentino, who designed an entire wardrobe for her to wear for a movie that was never released.
COMTESSE JACQUELINE DE RIBES: French style at its zenith. She has been muse to the great houses of couture and muse to herself for her own high fashion line sold in luxury retail stores. If she loved a St. Laurent couture dress of great design, she would order three: one in pale apricot and two in subtly different shades of pale, pale blue. She had her own exhibition at the Met in 2015, on view for three months.
DIANA VREELAND: She wore Balenciaga to work, then, in the youthquake sixties, switched to cool sheath dresses in summer, and pullover cashmere sweaters and wool trousers in winter, with red Mick Jagger rock boots in plastic snake, by Vivier. Her favorite jewels were fake Kenneth Jay Lane, except for a gift of a white enamel snake by Bulgari (actually a belt that she wrapped twice around her throat as a necklace). Racine wool jersey triangle kerchiefs, cut by Madame Grès, were worn as uniforms by day at her throat and, like an Apache dancer, at her waist over her slacks.
RIHANNA: For taking her style and turning it into a global fashion empire, Fenty and Fenty Beauty. She has the attitude of modern Africa—think Princess Elizabeth of Togo.
She inspires so many young girls with her fierce look, her personal line of lingerie, and her sportive heeled shoes for Puma. In 2019, she shattered the crystal ceiling with her Savage X Fenty show, featuring a diverse lineup of models and dancers. Savage X Fenty is everyone’s “add to cart” necessity.
MICHELLE OBAMA: In the White House, she wore Versace metallic mesh, draping across her body like a Grecian goddess’s toga. She wore rock-star, silvery-sequined stocking boots on a nail-thin heel by Balenciaga during her book tour for Becoming. She mixed high-low like no other fashion lady could.
DIANA ROSS: When she was on Ed Sullivan as a Supreme, she was inspirational as well as aspirational. And not only to African American women, with her flowing chiffon coats onstage, over sequins, and her mountains of Afro hair. She came to the Met Gala wearing real turkey feathers as a strapless ball dress during the Vreeland era. Tom Ford has dressed her, and gladly.
ALEXANDRA KOTUR: My dear friend and my column editor at Vogue for over fifteen years. She was creative director at Town & Country, and is now a mother of two wonderful young children: Digby and Roberta, for whom I am godfather. Alexandra wears clothes the beautiful Waspy way. Her day uniform: lean trousers, from spring to winter, summer, and fall. Very little jewelry, beautiful flats from Manolo Blahnik. For evening, the most beautiful couture shirts—very romantic—and huge sweeping skirts, all by Carolina Herrera. Very little makeup, by day or evening. She is a true lady.
BARBRA STREISAND: She has a breathtaking ability to wear outrageously elegant things, like white mink knickers and a mink newsboy’s cap, in her black and white television specials. And she wore Scaasi’s brilliant Peter Pan–collared top and jaunty bell-bottom trousers as she stumbled up to get her Oscar for Funny Girl. The illusion black chiffon was lined in subtle nude georgette, so on black and white television, she looked nude, but she wasn’t. And surely, there has never been a better front-row spectator at Chanel than Barbra when she was in Paris being photographed for Vogue, wearing a matching leopard coat and fedora, and then swinging around Avedon’s set in Madame Grès.
BETTY CATROUX: A former Chanel cabine couture model and muse to the great master Yves Saint Laurent. She’s the only woman who has managed to pull off wearing black nearly every day of her adult life, nearly all of it from YSL. She is responsible for making the black trouser suit elegant. Black looks fresh on Catroux.
MICA ERTEGUN: She was one of the best and biggest clients of Madame Grès when she was young. Long before I came to New York, she was orde
ring extravagant black McFarlands from Adolfo for the legendary nine o’clock parties. She spent her money at Saint Laurent, Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano for Dior, and Givenchy haute couture.
And yet, one year she found her Met Gala look at Norma Kamali: a black gypsy skirt, which weighed about fifteen pounds, paired with a black shirt. I thought it was Madame Grès, and Mica was so proud that she had made a couture look from the heavy gypsy skirt.
ISABEL TOLEDO: Her sense of elegance endures. This self-invented Cuban-born fashion designer wore looks that evoked refinement with sophisticated irony. Her best little black dresses were chosen because of historical references to couture and her Spanish roots. Of course, her Manolo Blahniks were chosen with an appreciation for dramatic and original details with every ensemble.
TAMRON HALL: The best-dressed woman on daytime television. Tamron cuts a major swath by wearing a white Roland Mouret jumpsuit—strapless—with a lightning bolt detail at ten o’clock A.M. Her look is always beautiful, like the powerful, illuminating African American film stars Diahann Carroll, Dorothy Dandridge, and Lena Horne. She loves edgy Chanel, Balenciaga, and Gucci by Alessandro Michele, yet she also wears emerging American design talents, like Denzel Parris, on her show. She will wear a stunning catsuit with a matching cape; she loves vintage and she wears the best stilettos with everything. She takes bold risks every day and they always work.
RENÉE ZELLWEGER: As a multi-Oscar winner, she has evolved over seasons of red carpet dressing into pure elegance. For example, the sleek, simple, Armani Privé she wore when she won Best Actress for her outstanding portrayal of Judy Garland in the biopic, Judy. For the 2020 Screen Actors Guild Awards red carpet, she wore a strapless midnight blue duchesse satin evening dress by John Galliano. With the eye of a great fashion editor, she selects dresses that are modern, minimal, eschewing all real or faux jewels on her neck and ears (no bells and whistles!), aiming for a pure Brancusi silhouette in slim sheath dresses, or robe fourreau, as it’s known in couture.
CATIE MARRON: She wears American brands, and eschews fine French couture.
Consistently, her wardrobe consists of the best Michael Kors and Oscar de la Renta, with a mix of accessories from Lanvin, and shoes always from Manolo Blahnik. To dinner, she once wore a Bill Blass vintage halter black cashmere sweater, with two satin bows.
No other black cashmere sweater could ever top it!
TINA BROWN (LADY HAROLD EVANS): She does a perfect glissade across the stage on towering six-inch stiletto heels, introducing international speakers and panels at her Women in the World Summit, in a super-structured pencil skirt and a crisp white shirt, accessorized with one gold bracelet and hell-red lip rouge. The crisp, rolled-up sleeve of her white cotton shirt, tucked into a pencil skirt that zips up the back with a gold zipper to the hem, shows a woman can be as cool as a modern-day Gibson Girl in the evolution of her sexual and intellectual power.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: CAROLINA HERRERA.
She gets her own category because when she still lived in Caracas, Venezuela, she would come to New York during the winter social season and turn heads, in Tan Giudicelli couture. When she dressed in Paris, at the couture, she had a cardinal rule: “I always selected the dress I knew no one else would think of buying.” For nearly five decades, she has been the most elegant lady in New York. Karl Lagerfeld said so, and I agree.
MEN
MANOLO BLAHNIK: His Anderson & Sheppard suits are tailored in every hue, from lilac and lavender to peony for summer, and in elegant tweeds and overscale checks in winter. This man exudes elegance in every way, from his tone-on-tone socks to his incredible oxfords or slip-on moccasins, designed solely for him and by him. His big addiction: poils de veau or stenciled moccasins for day and evening.
DR. CORNEL WEST: Professor of public practice of philosophy at Harvard University, author, and scholar. He has always worn a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. His distinct look: the silver and ebony Afro and beard, perfectly groomed, with rimless eyeglasses. The black suit uniform has a black roll-neck ribbed collar, often worn with a black turtleneck under the white shirt. This man is a true inspiration of style, an eloquent as well as elegant man who speaks with expertise on everything from black jazz to black politics.
TOM FORD: He has made his personal style into an empire, encompassing everything from scent to fashion for women and men. He has dozens of simple black single-breasted suits and white shirts, and wears only elegant, elongated black shoes.
OSCAR DE LA RENTA: What style! His perfect single-breasted suits—beige in summer, caviar tweeds in winter—and the most elegant bare feet. He even looked impeccable wearing a polo shirt and khaki Bermuda shorts. He always looked elegant, standing or photographed next to his beloved wife, Annette de la Renta.
BARON ERIC DE ROTHSCHILD: He wears his fifty-year-old custom-made suits from Anderson & Sheppard, the best London tailors. For weekends at Château Lafite, he favors simple pale washed denim shirts and blue jeans; for dinner, he wears beautiful velvet dinner jackets, white pleated dinner shirts, and needlepoint or broadtail slippers by Louboutin. In Paris, his underground garage has polished concrete floors, and numerous Warhol Marilyns hang on the walls, just for the sheer luxury of having them in this unexpected place.
MARC JACOBS: He dares to wear his elegant suits with women’s handbags by Chanel or Hermès envelopes. He once showed up at the Met Ball in a see-through lace shirt, buttoned to the top of his collar, by Comme des Garçons. He wore impeccable white sneakers by Balenciaga to his postwedding celebration and to Lee Radziwill’s funeral.
He carries a quilted Chanel pochette like a manbag from the seventies. Of course, he has fun, buying multicolored fur coats and fox scarves from his favorite Prada collections.
DR. CALVIN O. BUTTS III: Every Sunday from his pulpit, he represents the tradition of black male elegance, with sumptuous robes and shoes so polished you can see your reflection in them. Even his informal dress is nuanced, with well-chosen straw fedoras, linen shirts, and trousers. He is an icon of respectability and correctness.
THELONIOUS MONK: The only man to wear gaudy, outrageous rings and make it look cool as he sat at the piano, inventing and composing great modern jazz music. His silk shantung suits and white shirts with neckties coupled with his exotic headgear—Chinese silk skullcaps with tassels or kooky hats from his travels to places like Poland—and his plain slip-on shoes are the essence of every man’s wardrobe. He wore great overcoats with fur shawl collars, double-breasted.
WILL SMITH: Swag: He has the same impact as Cary Grant did, old-school style, except he is today’s black screen idol, who walks the walk with class. Always elegant, even in a T-shirt, cap, jeans, and white sneakers. And yet, he is Hollywood’s best example of a man when he is in a black suit or black tie.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: RALPH LAUREN.
For the last half century, this designer has made a global impact on style, not only with his clothing line but with his own personal sartorial perfection. He switches from Cary Grant in cosmopolitan elegance to the Marlboro Man on the American plains.
Whether in blue jeans with the perfect black smoking or dinner jacket, or wearing exquisite double-breasted banker stripes, or white tie and tails, he achieves his own version of “American style,” at its most unique best.
Photograph by Jonathan Becker
On the Pont Alexandre III, in Paris, June 2013, in a splendid multicolored and embroidered Tom Ford coat, Ralph Lauren dinner suit, shirt by Charvet, and Roger Vivier shoes.
Photograph by Jonathan Becker
I styled this photo of Diana Vreeland, taken in her “garden in hell” drawing room. Mrs. Vreeland once told me: “At a party, when you don’t feel as if you have the room at your attention, just find a seat, or a corner.
Sit quietly and calmly, occupy your personal space, and people will notice you. And if the world, or party, doesn’t come to you, well then it’s not meant to be.”
ANDRÉ Á L’HOMMAGE
> BY ARTIST GARRETT RITTENBERG
An oil painting of me reading Diana Vreeland’s Allure, at the FIERCE Ball, May 2019. It was the 150th anniversary of these legendary “vogueing” or “house balls,” safe places for members of the LGBTQ
community to celebrate uniqueness. I used to go to balls in the eighties on a Sunday afternoon, after church, and judge specific categories, ending up with the last category walking the floor at two A.M.
Anna Wintour and I on our way to the ready-to-wear collections in Paris in 2000. I’ve got on a Bella Freud sweater and Manolo Blahnik sandals, and Anna, shockingly, is wearing pants!
Karl and I in the courtyard of the Élysée Palace for Anna Wintour’s Légion d’honneur ceremony, 2011.
That’s Karl’s Jeep. My Mandarin tunic is by Ralph Rucci. Look at those Roger Vivier buckled shoes. Look how thin Karl is!
With Anna Wintour in 1999, black-and-gold embroidered leather court coat by Tom Ford, for Gucci. Anna is in John Galliano couture.
With Naomi Campbell in 2006. She dresses herself better than any stylist can, in Givenchy haute couture.
My silk cape is by Nicolas Ghesquière for Balenciaga, one of five capes Ghesquière designed for me. Suit by Ralph Lauren, white gloves by Charvet, Paris.
The Met Gala theme in 2007 was Poiret: King of Fashion. Karl Lagerfeld designed this Chanel haute couture floor-length silk navy faille cape, called a McFarland. It was inspired by a cape Merle Oberon wore in the film The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1934.
With Renee Zellweger in 2004. The theme was Dangerous Liaisons. She is wearing Carolina Herrera couture, and I am in a silk taupe faille Chanel haute couture coat, an exclusive design for ALT, by Karl Lagerfeld. The buttons are dated 1790, found by Lagerfeld at his favorite antique jeweler in Paris.
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