adorefaith
i'm almost ready..
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i have always thought she was so chic...
just lovely style...
just lovely style...
Nan Kempner
- Thread starter liberty33r1b
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travis_nw8
mmmmmm...fashion....
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here's an article from fashionunited.co.uk i found with a couple good little quotes from the lady herself...
A salute to Nan Kempner
Nan Kempner, the grande dame of fashion, passed away last Sunday at age 74 having suffered from emphysema. Hearing the news, I was shocked. Ever since I can remember being interested in fashion and couture, Nan Kempner has kept popping up on my style radar as the ultimate arbiter of fashion.
Kempner was smart about fashion. She loved couture and was an avid client of houses such as Christian Lacroix, Valentino, Ungaro, Oscar de la Renta, Tom Ford and Jean Paul Gaultier. She revealed that her father had once told her: "You'll never make it on your face, so you'd better be interesting." Harsh words but Kempner was realistic enough to take them to heart. She has been known to say that her intellect was not her forte and that she appealed to intellectuals only because she had so much to learn from them.
"At first, clothes were a façade, but as my personality evolved, there was a merger," she said in 1977. "I'm a plain-looking female, so it's comfortable for me to dress well and present my best side. That doesn't mean I'm competitive. I love looking at beautiful, well-dressed women."
Kempner was a firm believer in fashion rules. A few of her favourites and some to live by: "Spend the money", "Dress for lunch" and "Make an Effort". These are universal truths, the first of two of which should be interpreted according to your lifestyle, but making an effort should apply to all of us.
Survived by her husband of 53 years, banker Thomas L Kempner, two sons, a daughter and six grandchildren, Kempner is remembered fondly by fashion designers. Pierre Berge told WWD: "She was a true friend and very faithful. She was very elegant and generous. She belonged to an era that no longer exists. An era of the café society and women who went back and forth from St. Moritz to Nassau. She had a free spirit. And she was always a great champion of creativity. Yves and I are both very sad." Ungaro said: "There are few women like that anymore."
A salute to Nan Kempner
Kempner was smart about fashion. She loved couture and was an avid client of houses such as Christian Lacroix, Valentino, Ungaro, Oscar de la Renta, Tom Ford and Jean Paul Gaultier. She revealed that her father had once told her: "You'll never make it on your face, so you'd better be interesting." Harsh words but Kempner was realistic enough to take them to heart. She has been known to say that her intellect was not her forte and that she appealed to intellectuals only because she had so much to learn from them.
"At first, clothes were a façade, but as my personality evolved, there was a merger," she said in 1977. "I'm a plain-looking female, so it's comfortable for me to dress well and present my best side. That doesn't mean I'm competitive. I love looking at beautiful, well-dressed women."
Kempner was a firm believer in fashion rules. A few of her favourites and some to live by: "Spend the money", "Dress for lunch" and "Make an Effort". These are universal truths, the first of two of which should be interpreted according to your lifestyle, but making an effort should apply to all of us.
Survived by her husband of 53 years, banker Thomas L Kempner, two sons, a daughter and six grandchildren, Kempner is remembered fondly by fashion designers. Pierre Berge told WWD: "She was a true friend and very faithful. She was very elegant and generous. She belonged to an era that no longer exists. An era of the café society and women who went back and forth from St. Moritz to Nassau. She had a free spirit. And she was always a great champion of creativity. Yves and I are both very sad." Ungaro said: "There are few women like that anymore."
liberty33r1b
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^thanks a lot for this, travis!
Fixyfantastica
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I have to say.. i think i disagree with her father..i think she was absolutely beautiful in her later years..
classic1908
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Now that was an example of a CHIC older woman, Mrs. Kempner was. Well-turned out, great hair, wore what worked for her. Other older ladies with that sort of chic include Mica Ertegun.
travis_nw8
mmmmmm...fashion....
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she was uber-chic at least....
there are so many other ancient society couture clotheshangers- but she was the best and carried off the clothes better than the teenage models on the runway!
there are so many other ancient society couture clotheshangers- but she was the best and carried off the clothes better than the teenage models on the runway!
liberty33r1b
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wow, there will soon be an exhibition on her clothes, and i can't wait to see it!!!
i so hope this exhibition will also feature a book....
info from metmuseum.org:
Nan Kempner: American Chic
December 12, 2006–March 4, 2007
The Costume Institute, ground floor
This Costume Institute exhibition celebrates the cool glamour, spare elegance, and iconic style of one of the most renowned members of the Best-Dressed List’s Hall of Fame, the late Mrs. Thomas L. Kempner, through a selection of works by her favorite designers and couture ensembles.
i so hope this exhibition will also feature a book....
info from metmuseum.org:
Nan Kempner: American Chic
December 12, 2006–March 4, 2007
The Costume Institute, ground floor
This Costume Institute exhibition celebrates the cool glamour, spare elegance, and iconic style of one of the most renowned members of the Best-Dressed List’s Hall of Fame, the late Mrs. Thomas L. Kempner, through a selection of works by her favorite designers and couture ensembles.
liberty33r1b
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and more on this from artknowledgenews.com:
Nan Kempner's Collection at Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute
New York City - Nan Kempner – the late New York style icon, connoisseur of the couture, and member of The Best Dressed List’s Hall of Fame – will be the subject of the winter exhibition in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, from December 12, 2006, through March 4, 2007. Known for a seemingly effortless style that nonetheless displayed a meticulous attention to detail, she was a passionate client and collector of such designers as Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, and Oscar de la Renta from the 1960s onward.
Over five decades, she acquired thousands of articles of clothing and accessories. The exhibition – Nan Kempner: American Chic – will be comprised of a selection demonstrating the work of the designers she most admired, as well as the strategies of dress implicit in the creation of the personal and distinctive style of a woman celebrated for her fashion sense.
The clothing in the exhibition from Mrs. Kempner's personal collection is on loan courtesy of Mr. Thomas L. Kempner. A number of the ensembles were recently donated to the collection of The Costume Institute by Mr. Kempner.
Harold Koda, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, noted: “For Mrs. Kempner, the rigorous refinement of the haute couture was mediated by the informal strategies of American sportswear. While her taste was decidedly Francophile, by conveying a less rigid and prescribed version of elegance, Mrs. Kempner infused chic, that French concept of fashionable stylishness, with her own distinctly American inflection.”
The exhibition will include more than 75 ensembles organized in five categories in separate vitrines: resort wear, tailoring, the wardrobe and fashion archive, eveningwear, and accessories. The wardrobe and fashion archive will be presented as an evocation of Mrs. Kempner’s dressing area. While the display will feature important masterworks from Mrs. Kempner’s collection foregrounded in the vitrine, the organization of her dress rails and shelves as a backdrop will suggest the intimidating complexity of coordination required to create the stylish ensembles for which she was known.
Among the designers represented will be Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, and Oscar de la Renta, as well as John Galliano for Christian Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld for Fendi, Lanvin, and Emanuel Ungaro. Accessory designs and jewelry by JAR, Verdura, Kenneth Jay Lane, and others will also be on view.
Nan Kempner (1930-2005) – who was called by Yves Saint Laurent "la plus chic du monde" and by Vanity Fair "the world's most famous clotheshorse" – was an inveterate follower of fashion from childhood, when she collected dolls and attended fashion shows with her mother. After making her first couture acquisition of a Dior sheath in Paris in the 1950s, she for nearly 40 years never missed the couture shows there. In the 1970s she was known as an integral part of the social set that Women's Wear Daily called "the Cat Pack."
An elegant blonde with a raspy voice and self-deprecating humor, she said of herself, "I'm a drunk when it comes to clothes." Five-foot-nine-inches tall and always slender, she was said to be the inspiration for the term "social X-ray" in Tom Wolfe's novel Bonfire of the Vanities and Valentino once remarked of her, "Nan always looks so wonderful in my clothes, because she has a body like a hanger." But it was her sense of style that captivated the designers whose work she loved, wore, and collected. As Diana Vreeland expressed it: "There's no such thing as a chic American woman…The one exception is Nan Kempner."
A variety of education programs will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition, which will also be featured on the Museum's Web site at www.metmuseum.org.
Nan Kempner's Collection at Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute
Over five decades, she acquired thousands of articles of clothing and accessories. The exhibition – Nan Kempner: American Chic – will be comprised of a selection demonstrating the work of the designers she most admired, as well as the strategies of dress implicit in the creation of the personal and distinctive style of a woman celebrated for her fashion sense.
The clothing in the exhibition from Mrs. Kempner's personal collection is on loan courtesy of Mr. Thomas L. Kempner. A number of the ensembles were recently donated to the collection of The Costume Institute by Mr. Kempner.
Harold Koda, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, noted: “For Mrs. Kempner, the rigorous refinement of the haute couture was mediated by the informal strategies of American sportswear. While her taste was decidedly Francophile, by conveying a less rigid and prescribed version of elegance, Mrs. Kempner infused chic, that French concept of fashionable stylishness, with her own distinctly American inflection.”
The exhibition will include more than 75 ensembles organized in five categories in separate vitrines: resort wear, tailoring, the wardrobe and fashion archive, eveningwear, and accessories. The wardrobe and fashion archive will be presented as an evocation of Mrs. Kempner’s dressing area. While the display will feature important masterworks from Mrs. Kempner’s collection foregrounded in the vitrine, the organization of her dress rails and shelves as a backdrop will suggest the intimidating complexity of coordination required to create the stylish ensembles for which she was known.
Among the designers represented will be Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, and Oscar de la Renta, as well as John Galliano for Christian Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld for Fendi, Lanvin, and Emanuel Ungaro. Accessory designs and jewelry by JAR, Verdura, Kenneth Jay Lane, and others will also be on view.
An elegant blonde with a raspy voice and self-deprecating humor, she said of herself, "I'm a drunk when it comes to clothes." Five-foot-nine-inches tall and always slender, she was said to be the inspiration for the term "social X-ray" in Tom Wolfe's novel Bonfire of the Vanities and Valentino once remarked of her, "Nan always looks so wonderful in my clothes, because she has a body like a hanger." But it was her sense of style that captivated the designers whose work she loved, wore, and collected. As Diana Vreeland expressed it: "There's no such thing as a chic American woman…The one exception is Nan Kempner."
A variety of education programs will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition, which will also be featured on the Museum's Web site at www.metmuseum.org.
new exhibition "Nan Kempner, une
américaine à Paris" , at Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent
Quote:
"Nan Kempner was faithful to Saint Laurent as a woman is faithful to
her
lover. As such her relationship with fashion went far beyond that of
other
women.
Fashion played an essential role in her life. She was both muse and
patron. A
patron of creation. Hers was a unique way of dialoguing with
couturiers, with
Yves Saint Laurent in particular."
www.fondation-pb-ysl.net
Exhibition from May 16th to July 29th 2007
Open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 6 pm
Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent
3, rue Léonce Reynaud
75116 Paris
américaine à Paris" , at Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent
Quote:
"Nan Kempner was faithful to Saint Laurent as a woman is faithful to
her
lover. As such her relationship with fashion went far beyond that of
other
women.
Fashion played an essential role in her life. She was both muse and
patron. A
patron of creation. Hers was a unique way of dialoguing with
couturiers, with
Yves Saint Laurent in particular."
www.fondation-pb-ysl.net
Exhibition from May 16th to July 29th 2007
Open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 6 pm
Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent
3, rue Léonce Reynaud
75116 Paris
liberty33r1b
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^great news! thanks for posting.
Hey there, I've posted the photos from the YSL Foundation and Met exhibits on the YSL Multimedia thread (scroll back for the Met photos
http://www.thefashionspot.com/forums/f60/yves-saint-laurent-ysl-multimedia-53224-7.html
http://www.thefashionspot.com/forums/f60/yves-saint-laurent-ysl-multimedia-53224-7.html
liberty33r1b
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^thanks, i love everything u posted!!
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Love$2shop
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LetThemEatCake
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^^Good Ol' Nan. 
Loved her. I remember a long very reed-thin red and dry arm (from years of sunbathing) reaching out to touch a piece of couture and her going into a rage over someone asking her if she wanted to know how much it was. 
Anyhow, much respect to her style.
Loved her. I remember a long very reed-thin red and dry arm (from years of sunbathing) reaching out to touch a piece of couture and her going into a rage over someone asking her if she wanted to know how much it was. Anyhow, much respect to her style.
LetThemEatCake
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Video of her exhibit American Chic at the Met
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LyQigN73ZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LyQigN73ZI
liberty33r1b
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^thanks so much!!!!
LetThemEatCake
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You're welcome. I found a couple older pics for someone who asked.
Original caption: 12/6/1968-New York: Nan Kempner, one of society's leading ladies, was in the spotlight during a benefit fashion show held in New York (11/22) . Mrs. Kempner wore a nouveau print harem outfit fashioned in a new fabric called "Touch."
With Valentino in 1985.
corbis
Original caption: 12/6/1968-New York: Nan Kempner, one of society's leading ladies, was in the spotlight during a benefit fashion show held in New York (11/22) . Mrs. Kempner wore a nouveau print harem outfit fashioned in a new fabric called "Touch."
With Valentino in 1985.
corbis
I saved that VF for the article on Nan, it was an amazing profile and my first introduction to her.
LetThemEatCake
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Any way you could scan it LUXXX? 
