1930-2005
In the 1960s a socialite was stopped at the door of a chic restaurant in New York because she was in a trouser suit. That was Nan Kempner in a Saint Laurent tunic over pants. She took off the bottom half on the spot, gave it to her husband, and flaunting the top as a minidress sat to dine. "I put a lot of napkins in my lap and didn't dare bend over."
Nan helped many charities, especially the Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer centre, which, in 2000, received the proceeds of her book, RSVP: Menus For Entertaining From People Who Really Know How.
She was from San Francisco , the daughter of a Ford car dealer, Albert Schlesinger, and his wife Irma, "who cared terribly about how she looked". Nan's formal education ended with a year in Paris , taking painting lessons with Fernand Léger, who told her "I had so little talent I should go back to San Francisco and stop wasting my parents' money . . . it was true."
She met Thomas Kempner, chairman of an investment bank, who said her Christian Dior skirt was too short; they traded insults, dated, married in 1952 and had 3 children.
Her mother and grandmother trained her as a clotheshorse. Her first couture gown was a white Dior sheath, bought in the early 1950s. Over 5 decades she acquired thousands of articles of clothing and accessories.
She travelled to Paris and Milan twice a year for shows. She kept herself slender enough to fit into couture samples, discounted at $10,000 a gown. She stored them (when the children grew up, she converted their rooms to extra closets) and thus had a collection of "Art to Wear.". Museums asked her for clothes all the time. She was elected to the fashion Hall of Fame and gave courses at the Metropolitan Museum.
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