This article was originally published in the August 2001 issue of Vogue.
According to a longtime rule of fashion, if you were old enough to wear it the first time around, don’t consider wearing it again. I’ve sported bare legs with heels, the cinched-waist mid-calf skirt, the trapeze, the chemise, the chiffon blouse without a bra, the Mary Quant miniskirt, the YSL Smoking, the total Courrèges white-boot look, the bell-bottom trousers with the po’ boy sweater, the power suit, and the tie-dyed Zandra Rhodes evening pajamas. If I had to dress in something I’d never worn before, I’d be limited to a pair of stilettos with fishnet stockings, a Pucci bikini, and a cocktail hat.
That’s what happens to a woman like me, 73 years old and as fascinated by clothes as I ever was in my 20s. I’m more than old enough to dress any way I choose, to adopt a Katharine Hepburn-like uniform and stick to it with dignity for all occasions, or else to find a way to remain stylish without looking like Vivienne Westwood.
But I love fashion too much to confine myself to a standard look. I had my era in which to use clothes for seduction, and I made the most of it. Now, as I have for decades, I can focus on being imaginatively put-together yet appropriate. Yes, appropriate, a word that will never go out of style. As Emerson said, “The sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.” Go, Ralph Waldo!
I learned about grown-up clothes when I lived in Paris for a year after college in 1948-1949 and was introduced to the inexpensive “little dressmaker” who copied the haute couture with great skill. Women then were either still schoolgirls or considered to be adults. There were no hottie, Sex and the City years in which to roam the wilder shores of fashion. By the time the New Look lost its grip. I’d developed the beginnings of a style of my own—never flamboyant or cutting-edge, and always far from funky, yet both sophisticated and fundamentally classic. I’ve definitely followed the fashions of five decades, but I’ve never been a fashionista. My miniskirts never crept up to micro. Today I can see absolutely no reason why age should make me change my personal style in any way.
Before I tell you the current secrets of my closet, that intimate garden every woman cultivates, whether pruned or overgrown, Zen or magpie-full, I have to discuss my figure, since size determines options in clothes. With the plea that you won’t hate me for it, I must admit that I’ve maintained the same weight for 46 years, ever since I started to exercise regularly and watch my diet with severe dedication. Obviously I’m profoundly compulsive, but in a healthy way. I’ve never had an eating disorder, but I am a control freak who sticks to a lean high-protein diet, mostly chicken, fish, fresh fruit, and a bit of veg, plus the occasional fling with a steak. Fortunately I have no sweet tooth, and as the years passed, my stomach became accustomed to smaller portions. I’m hardly a haggard bag of bones since my 104 pounds are confined to a five-foot-two frame, with strong but slender arms, rather skinny legs, and a torso that’s firm and very flexible but marked by the rounded tummy I was born with. (I can feel my abs of iron but have never seen them.) I’m a 6 above the waist, an 8 below, so I buy clothes in 8 and have them altered.
I started doing Pilates long before it was popular, and I owe my body as much to 36 years of Pilates three times a week as to disciplined eating. My trainer, Diane Severino, says that my muscles simply have no idea that Ive grown older since they’ve been subjected to the same extremely rigorous advanced workout for decades.
Maintaining my weight and shape—although a few pounds have given in to gravity and migrated south to my waistline—doesn’t mean that I find it easy to dress well in this all-but-hysterically youth-oriented period of fashion.
There has never been a time in which so many designers are concentrating their efforts on the young and perfect, that midriff-baring, navel-proud, thighs-of-a-goddess tiny minority. Older customers are heartlessly treated as if they have no right to new clothes for the many special occasions in their life. Do designers imagine that most women have the body of Jennifer Lopez? Don’t they understand that women with the money to buy really good clothes and who still have active social lives usually are not young? Oh, don’t get me started!
For daytime there’s no problem. I have a many-hued bouquet of Chanel jackets bought over the years for the promotion of my novels. I’ve given away those that somehow lost their zing—which, mysteriously, can happen overnight; I’ve changed a lot of shoulder pads, but I still have a dozen jackets to choose from, wearing them over J.Crew long-sleeved, round-necked T-shirts, Chanel blouses, French-cuffed white cotton shirts made in Hong Kong by Ascot Chang, or thin cashmere sweaters, all of which I tuck into my pants and belt.
I live in pants by day or night 90 percent of the time because they make me look taller. I have them custom made by Lucy De Caste nou in Beverly Hills. She has my patterns in pleated and flat pants, which we adjust from time to time. I wear white linen, cotton, and silk crepe in the summer, and black in all weights and fabrics the rest of the year. I also have a few pairs of gray-flannel and beige pants. I believe that the luxury of made-to-order pants is the most important element of my wardrobe. Impeccable fit is as essential to me as comfort: I’ve never found a pair of jeans I could endure for long. The skirts of my suits get an airing only for serious lunches, board meetings, and public speaking. I also own several perfect black Chanel silk, wool, and chiffon skirts to pair with jackets for evening, worn with sheer black Wolford panty hose and black shoes, again for a taller look. I always wear skirts for ballroom dancing, a hobby of my husband’s and mine.
I need a lot of evening clothes, and that’s where the difficulty begins. I’ve recently conducted a sweep of all the better-dress departments of Beverly Hills without finding one single acceptable long dress that covered the upper arms, the Bermuda Triangle that few women over a certain age want to reveal, or as Boaz Mazor of Oscar de la Renta says, “Never wave goodbye over 40.” (How long has it been since you’ve seen Sophia Loren’s upper arms in a photo?) What to do if you’re not Sophia and haute couture isn’t an option? I’ve found several paths.
First of all I keep my most successful purchases as long as possible, so that my closet contains many outfits that are more than ten years old and many individual items, like a ravishing black-and-gold lace scarf from Geoffrey Beene and an Anne Klein suede blouson zip-up jacket, both of which I’ve had for 30 years, and which go out to dinner smashingly together over a black sweater and pants, Suits aside, I buy only separates—dresses are too limited—and I make time every season to experiment with putting things together in new ways. When I find an unexpected combination I write it down so it won’t be forgotten. I never buy prints, because they don’t adapt to mix- and-never-match, and they’re too memorable.
Secondly, I go to my favorite designers’ trunk shows when they come to L.A., to ferret out those few items designed for someone over 35. (I always crumple fabric in my fist for five minutes to see how badly it wrinkles, and I order nothing I haven’t studied while looking in a full-length mirror.) Trunk shows allow me to order clothes in color since I try to wear black as rarely as possible. Women of my age tend to wear black, and I disappear at a party unless I’m wearing color—which, in any case, is more flattering. Finally, I’m getting to know the vintage stores where I can pick up the essential odd jackets that can turn pants and skirts into new outfits.
To be specific, in March, to the gala opening of the Alvin Ailey company at the Music Center, the invitation called for “festive cocktail wear.” I unearthed a Chanel favorite that’s four years old: a gold lamé tunic with slim matching pants, under a lightweight brown-and-beige tweed coat trimmed with collar and cuffs of the same lamé. It’s the oddball mixture of fabrics that makes it always look up-to-date, and I can usually wear it at least twice a year.
Also in March, an invitation to the benefit preview of Christie’s auction of Tony Duquette’s furnishings demanded “Evening Dress in the Duquette Manner.” Three years ago I couldn’t resist buying Oscar de la Renta’s very elaborate ruffled jacket in celadon-and-white-striped taffeta embroidered with delicate pink flowers with green stems... almost a costume. (A wise saleslady once told me that if you buy something you don’t need, the invitation will come.) When I fell for it, I also ordered two solid taffeta celadon skirts, long and short, as well as thin cashmere sweaters in celadon and pale pink.
For the Duquette evening I wore the long skirt, the matching sweater, and the jacket. I piled on three vintage costume necklaces of green and red stones, from a collection accumulated over many years. Then I added big vintage green-and-red Chanel earrings and a massive matching brooch pinned on one sleeve.
That, I decided, took care of the “Duquette Manner” and proved my theory that if you buy things you love, take care of them, and hang on to them even though you don’t know why, a day will come when they prove brilliantly useful. Also, small jewelry makes small women smaller. Big jewelry for all women!
Oscar’s striped jacket reverses to plain celadon, and with the short skirt, the pink sweater, and my good pearls it makes a great party suit. (Note: Pearls can sometimes make older women look older.) I expect to own this outfit forever. Obviously I’m not of the “give away everything you haven’t worn in the last few years” school—that attitude is for the very trendy or ultrarich. Most women would be wiser to keep their greatest buys in the back of their closets for that distant future in which I now find myself living. I still miss a Jean Muir tweed cape I gave away 23 years ago. As for my four superb Norells from the sixties, I could wear them today—if only I still had them.
Soon after the Duquette evening, I went to a dinner party in my most beloved possession, a short black velvet Chanel jacket embroidered by Lesage with bunches of violets. Fifteen years ago it came with long, wide black satin pants, and I paid more for it than any other piece in my closet. I’ve had the satin trim rebound in grosgrain, and it never looks less than splendid. I wore the jacket open over a plain black silk, low-cut chemise tucked into new black velvet pants, a multistranded Miriam Haskell necklace in two tones of green, and large amethyst briolette drop earrings. As with most of my clothes, my friends have seen that jacket, worn one way or another, at least once a year for fifteen years, but I doubt they remember. And if they do, so what?
Three of my friends dress exclusively in Armani. They’re all larger and more impressive than I am and always beautifully turned out, but rather than go the safe Armani way, I search for a touch of fantasy in my clothes. I think of getting dressed as a form of play, like sketching flowers with colored pencils.
I’m serious about buying the very best accessories. They know no age limitations, and they reward me every day. Hermès scarves tend to follow me out of the store. During the day I’m rarely without their transforming colors around my neck, even in a bathrobe. The minute one looks too familiar I send it to a good home. As for Hermès bags, I buy no others. Once you’ve owned one, there’s no turning back. I take them to be refurbished every year so they always look well loved, no matter their age. My husband has indulged my Kelly passion with a black crocodile medium-size bag and two minis, in ruby-red and dark-green crocodile. Age has its prerogatives!
What did I buy this past spring? (After all, I don’t wear only old clothes.) Two long evening dresses from Oscar, one with a pink lace top and an Edwardian black satin skirt, the other in a raspberry silk crepe, with a long-sleeved, boat-necked overblouse and a mermaid skirt slit high on the side, both ordered with stoles to guard against air-conditioning. I couldn’t resist Oscar’s light white wool coat trimmed with eyelet for daytime—it’s been forever since I’ve bought a new spring coat. I remember when it was a beloved yearly ritual. The coat came with a matching skirt and top, and I added an identical top in navy—many different looks to be created there.
At Chanel, in the cruise collection, I found a navy-and-white-striped Norfolk jacket that looked really new, as well as a simple but ravishing long pink jacket with a fly front. (After a certain age, a woman’s wardrobe needs frequent transfusions of pink.) From the spring collection I bought only a tucked white chiffon blouse with a floppy black bow, very “Coco.” I hope M. Lagerfeld starts to remember his loyal customers in the fall collection. At his prices, he’d better!
From Marni, in homage to Sarah Jessica Parker, I bought a whimsical navy cashmere sweater with two huge red-and-white- striped flowers at the neckline. Carrie would wear it with shorts; I’ll pull it over white silk trousers. And finally I found a Kate Spade short raincoat in geranium, an ideal casual cover-up. When I shop I always wear something tried and true. Eileen Ford once told me that when she judged foreign model competitions she brought photos of her best girls for comparison because you lose your eye so quickly; and the same thing goes for clothes.
As for shoes, I bought only Prada and Miu Miu flats. There may be some women of my age who want to flaunt bed-of-nails-hooker stilettos, but I”m not one of them. The height of heels today is as ridiculous as Marie Antoinette’s wigs, a form of tulip-mania although far more painful and potentially harmful. Foot fetishism, anyone? And what of the 80 percent of this spring’s shoes that are open in the back and front and must be worn without stockings? I did that in the last years of World War II and hated the feeling. Few bare legs are impeccably pretty, and even fewer toes. To me, a woman dressed for evening with bare legs simply looks unfinished. How can the shoe industry not offer more choice? Thank Heaven for Kate Spade and her fleet of flat Mary Janes; thank Heaven for spotless white Keds.
On many a summer day I may indeed be that famous little old lady in tennis shoes, but in immaculate white trousers, a fresh white shirt, a red cardigan over my shoulders, and a sulfur-yellow Hermès bag, I won’t feel like one. And my feet won’t hurt.
