Cecil Beaton in New York

The Marquesa de Casa Maury on a field of Beaton roses.

You may remember that I wrote in the October issue of Elle Decor magazine about the new "Cecil Beaton: The New York Years" exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York and its accompanying catalogue book published by Rizzoli. (Read the story here.) Last week TD and I headed up to the museum on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street for the opening night reception for the show. From the '20s through the '60s the imaginative, influential English photographer and designer often worked in New York City, and his photographs, paintings, set designs and costumer designs are on view in the exhibit. "With his European sensibility, Beaton helped make New York City a cultural center between the wars," curator and author Donald Albrecht told me.

We ran into friend Mario Buatta who helped sponsor the evening, and proceeded in. At the entrance of the exhibit are some stunning black and white photographs from the '20s mounted on a very dramatic black and white Cecil Beaton rose pattern wallpaper. We met at the reception Roger Bernard and Andrew Ginger from the Cecil Beaton Fabric Collection, who was over from England for business and for the opening. They reported that the Beaton Rose pattern is available in a number of color ways. I said I thought the big black and white pattern would look great in a small powder room. So luxe.
Here is a closer look at Paula Gellibrand, Marquesa de Casa Maury, photographed by Beaton in 1928. I love her shimmering dress and background. Her long oval face reminded me of my grandmother, Florence Mumford.

I admired this woman's similar shimmering dress...

and read the identifying card to learn that it is Beaton himself! In drag for a Cambridge University production. Those were the days.
Inside the exhibition was this delicate watercolor of Tallulah Bankhead from 1932. I like the colorblocked dress, which is a big trend in fashion this fall too.

Posted throughout were provocative quotes from Mr. Beaton:

The Englishman designed this costume for Birgit Nilsson for the 1961 Metropolitan Opera production of Turandot.

Perhaps Beaton is best known for his iconic, Edwardian black and white costumes for the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady. He had this to say:

Here is Cecil Beaton in top hat with Truman Capote. Can you imagine the conversations?

This is a photograph of Diana Vreeland that I had not seen before. The great editor pictured at home surrounded by her bibelot is charming.

One wall in the exhibition room was covered by a red version of the Beaton Rose wallpaper. Here it is over "The Art of Self-Promotion" which he was quite adept at.

And a final word from Cecil Beaton:

The show is at the Museum of the City of New York until February 20, 2012; admission is $10.

The Wonderful World of Muriel Brandolini

With the decorator at Barneys 

Last week I was invited to Barneys New York to celebrate the publication of the new book The World of Muriel Brandolini (Rizzoli) by the well-known international decorator. Barneys is also featuring right now an 800-square-foot pop-up store which sells Brandolini's limited-edition home collection produced exclusively for the store. And this past Friday, Phillips de Pury & Company auctioned 120 pieces of her personal collection including furniture, photography and decorative objects. So right now it really is the world of Muriel Brandolini.

The decorator grew up in Vietnam "during the 1960s, the height of the Vietnam War, when shelling and soldiers were part of daily life," she writes in the book. Her family moved to Martinique and then she lived in Paris before moving on to New York City where she met her husband-to-be financier Nuno Brandolini, a Count in the aristocratic Italian Brandolini family. The couple have a son and a daughter.

In lush photography, principally shot by Pieter Estersohn, the book celebrates Brandolini's decorating work as it has developed over her career. Her global background expresses itself with bright colors, luxe fabrics, a fearless mix of periods, and combining Eastern and Western styles together for a cohesive whole that is the signature Brandolini look.

Photo by Fernando Bengoechea

In her own New York City dining room on the Upper East Side, below, Brandolini covered the walls with purple hand-blocked fabric from her own collection and placed a Chinese red-laquer opium bed for lounging. It's all pretty delicious.

Photo by Fernando Bengoechea

The party at Barneys was a swanky affair – a lot of stylish Europeans speaking Italian. A woman wore a simple black dress with a white evening coat over it, and black sling-backs. It had that Italian polished nonchalance and reminded me of Tom Ford Gucci. Oh, and Uma Thurman was there. I didn't recognize her because she was dressed casually but when I heard her low, distinctive voice, my head snapped around. I wanted to tell her that she was in one of my favorite beautiful movies of all time – The Golden Bowl.

When I got off the elevator to enter the event the first thing I noticed was that the party smelled good. That's because bespoke jeweler and Brandolini pal James Givenchy produced a small collection of scented candles for Taffin available at Barneys ($65 each), and one of the three scents – Fleur d'Oranger – was wafting through the party. The combination of lily of the valley and orange flower is Muriel's favorite, and scents her home.

I received one as a gift and lit it on our mantelpiece. I am not really a scented candle guy but I like this one very much. It's not too strong, and the fragrant blend of orange and flower creates a sophisticated mood that is both European and exotic, just like Muriel Brandolini.

Fortuny at Bergdorf Goodman

Fortuny tableware luxuriously displayed at Bergdorf Goodman

I recently got to see the beautiful new Fortuny collection that Bergdorf Goodman is carrying in its home department on the seventh floor. Mariano Fortuny – the name is kind of magical. The artist who lived and worked in Venice around the turn of the last century was a stage and lighting designer, photographer, and painter. He is best known though for designing silk pleated dresses, called the Delphos gown, which could be rolled up into a ball and looked like something women wore in ancient Greece. Lauren Hutton told me once that she collects Fortuny gowns, and when I visited Curator-in-Charge Harold Koda in the archives at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute, he opened a sleek white drawer to reveal balled up Fortuny gowns in vivid colors like knotted jewels. Fortuny also is remembered for his timeless handblocked velvet and silk prints that epitomize Venice whose sea explorers linked the exotic East with Western Europe.
Mariano Fortuny:

Fortuny was born in Spain in 1871 and his family moved to Venice in 1889. He later purchased the Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfie, a palace built in the fifteen century, which became his home and his atelier. Today it is the Fortuny Museum which is open to visitors. TD and I have been to Venice once, and I loved it so much – city as a work of art. I hope to return some day and to visit the Fortuny Museum:

Fortuny died in 1949 but the Fortuny company carries on in Venice, selling fabrics, furniture, glass and pillows. Now it has teamed up with L'OBJET, which has produced a collection of fine tableware, home accessories and gifts based on Fortuny designs; prices are from $75 - $1,200. For the seventh floor display at Bergdorf Goodman, opulent tables are set and walls are lined with Fortuny fabric. You know that I love things that go back in time, and this collection really hits the spot.
There are golden lanterns

and striking plates for the table to be layered and mixed.
This three tier server in contrasting prints is striking.

Boxes are made of real Fortuny fabrics.

Romantic, no?

While working on this collection, Nicholas Manville, Vice President of Decorative Home at Bergdorf Goodman, went to see the Fortuny archives in Venice. "It was a magical day," said Nicholas. "Most times a gate is unlocked for you in Venice, an incredible experience follows. I began to appreciate that Fortuny designs could only ever be created in Venice. It is clear how the designs are informed by the light, water, color, architecture, and secretive drama of the city." This nook on Bergdorf's seventh floor displays Fortuny fabric curtains, furniture, accessories and hanging lamps. I felt like I was in a Henry James novel.

The collection is available through the holidays and makes wonderful gifts. It inspired me – I went home and listened to Vivaldi and lit some candles as if I was in Fortuny's Venice.

Unclehood

A friend recently emailed to say, "I need a Jane hit on the blog," and I replied, "Me too." It is always fun for me to see my niece and my nephews. Jane is now almost 14; when I started this blog she was 10 so she is growing up in photos. Jane likes art and fashion too so I met her at the Daphne Guinness show at F.I.T. at West 27th Street. I really enjoyed being there again. What struck me on this visit is the styling of the show; I think almost every outfit is accessorized with a bit of velvet ribbon, an old heirloom"diamond" brooch. Daphne wears very modern clothes but the way she styles them with her ribbons and diamonds make the clothes look romantic and timeless. In the dandy tailored section of the show, I noticed Daphne's quote, "There is a lot of cross-dressing in Shakespeare. I'm inspired by that." At the press preview, she had said she is most inspired by literature, and what the characters would be wearing.

Jane and I stopped for a bagel and then proceeded on to the Flea Market Garage on West 25th Street.

We strolled around the two floors of flea market vendors. One vendor was selling an old rotary telephone. Jane picked it up and said, "How does this work?" As we were leaving the second floor, Jane spotted some suede zip-up moccasins with fringe around the ankles. They fit her perfectly

so I bought them for her birthday. She has a good eye.
Then we schlepped down to West 17th Street to some more of my vintage store haunts – Pippin Vintage Home, Angel Street Thrift Shop, and Housing Works. At Pippin Vintage Home I ran into some friends, and also ran into a friend at F.I.T. It reminded me of when I was young and my uncle Brian, my mother's brother, took me on trips and excursions. He always ran into someone he knew, which was fun, whether it was at the Albany museum or on a bus in a snow storm or at the Utica Club Brewery. Brian, who is an attorney in the Albany area, often took my brother Thom and I on adventures – there were outings to the local fire department in Ridgewood, New Jersey, the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, and the offices of the Albany newspaper. He was the first person to take me on an airplane trip. A great uncle. He is my model in this department.

Bill Cunningham New York Documentary

I took this photo of Bill Cunningham at a party in his honor at Bergdorf Goodman in 2008.

This we file under "What Happened to the Summer?" The documentary Bill Cunningham New York came out in theaters earlier this year and our friends were raving about it and TD and I meant to see it over the summer, but we just didn't make it there. Luckily it is now on pay-per-view so we recently caught it on tv. Be sure to see it if you haven't already.

Bill Cunningham, as I said here on the blog when he attended a party in his honor, is the extremely influential, much beloved New York Times street fashion photographer who shoots the "On the Street" page and the "Nightlife" page of the Sunday Styles section. Everyone in New York wants to be photographed by Cunningham, and he shapes fashion by the trends he covers and those that he doesn't. "We all get dressed for Bill," Anna Wintour says in this movie. Yours truly has been pictured on his page once and TD has made numerous appearances. The photographer is famously adverse to interviews or publicity and it took documentarian Richard Press eight years to get Cunningham to agree to be the subject of this movie.

Though Cunningham has since moved to a new place, he is shown in his small apartment where lived forever in Carnegie Hall which is packed with filing cabinets and a small bed. "Who the hell wants a kitchen or a bathroom!" he exclaims. At age 83, he still travels around town on a bicycle, and the film shows many examples of him traversing testy city traffic. Cunningham always wears a simple blue jacket (see above) which he says costs $20 and is like what street sweepers wear. His is a very ascetic and humble lifestyle.

The photographer is extremely private so not much is revealed about his personal life though he says he goes to church every week and has had no romantic relationships. Wikipedia says that Cunningham dropped out of Harvard, but that is not mentioned in this movie. What does come through clearly is his love of fashion. "The best fashion show is always on the street," he says. "You have to stay on the street and let it tell you what the news is." The movie observes that he uses a camera like a pen to take notes. Peddling uptown and downtown to photograph glamorous girls in gorgeous dresses, Cunningham truly is an original, and New York is richer for his presence.
He is the monk of fashion, an artist on a bicycle.

"He who seeks beauty will find it," says Bill Cunningham.

Bill Cunningham New York trailer:

Bill Cunningham New York Trailer from Gavin McWait on Vimeo.

My Story on Cecil Beaton in the Oct. Elle Decor

Dear reader, you might enjoy my article in the October issue of Elle Decor. It's about the Cecil Beaton exhibition which is coming to the Museum of the City of New York this month, and its accompanying book from Rizzoli. I'm looking forward to seeing this show which opens on October 25. I've said here before on the blog that a big memory from my childhood was being taken for my seventh birthday to see My Fair Lady in a huge old movie theater in Philadelphia. I was completely entranced by the film, and the Cecil Beaton-designed Edwardian costumes and sets were a major part of the appeal (besides of course the Lerner and Lowe music and Audrey Hepburn herself). Yes, it was the beginning of beautiful things. So I'm happy to have the chance now to pay tribute to Cecil Beaton.

Pick up an issue of the magazine – it's the big fashion issue filled with delicious interiors including fashion designer Andrew Gn's sumptuous apartment in Paris which is something out of Proust. Editor in Chief Michael Boodro and his editors are doing a wonderful job – enjoy!

A Visit With Antiques Expert Leigh Keno

BB with Leigh Keno
This week brought the opportunity to visit with American antiques expert Leigh Keno. I recognized Leigh from his appearances as an appraiser on the Antiques Roadshow on PBS. TD and I enjoy watching that show where typically some lady in Omaha will bring in an old vase that her next door neighbor gave her twenty years ago and it turns out to be a rare French find worth $50,000 and the woman just about faints.

But mostly I wanted to meet him because he is from Mohawk, New York, the town of approximately 2,000 people across the Erie Canal from Herkimer where my O'Donnell ancestors lived and not far from New Hartford where I grew up. My cousin Ginny got married and had her reception in Mohawk. Leigh told me that in fact his father was the art teacher at the Herkimer High School. He and his twin brother Leslie enjoyed fly-fishing in the Mohawk Creek. Both of Leigh's parents were also antiques dealers, and he and Leslie started buying and selling when they were twelve years old. Leigh went to Hamilton College in nearby Clinton and Leslie went to Williams College in Massachusetts. "We paid for college with the stoneware collection that we bought and sold," said Leigh.

With a passion for American antiques and paintings, Leigh went to work after college for the Doyle auction house in New York City, and Leslie went to Sotheby's where he still works. Leigh subsequently toiled at Christie's and then became an independent antiques dealer, helping private clients build personal collections. Leigh was been a regular on the Antiques Roadshow since 1997, and in 2000 the twins wrote a book, Hidden Treasures, Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture. This past summer they co-hosted a reality show called Buried Treasures.

And now comes Leigh's newest challenge. In 2009 he launched his own auction house, Keno Auctions. "With an auction house I get to handle a variety of things – from Danish modern to jewelry to contemporary prints," he says. The business is headquartered in a brick house on the upper east side, and Leigh reports that he lives upstairs with "my better half Jasmine" and their 13-year-old son. This coming up weekend on Saturday the 24th, Keno Auctions will be holding a sale of important paintings, furniture, decorative art and jewelry at the Marriott Hotel in Stamford, Connecticut. Check it out if you can; Leigh says that items are priced at conservative estimates which means you could get a deal!

Daphne Guinness Press Preview at F.I.T.

Daphne Guinness book cover, photo by Kevin Davies. Book available from Yale University Press in November.

I had the pleasure on Friday of attending the press preview for the Daphne Guinness exhibit which opened that day at the Fashion Institute of Technology at Seventh Avenue and 27th Street. You know Daphne Guinness – she is the fantastically creative style icon who inspires designers and brings their clothes to life, and also has forged her own signature look which is completely original. Daphne Guinness is an artist and her medium is clothes. This exhibition of her personal wardrobe was co-curated by Ms. Guinness and Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT, and includes 100 garments and accessories from the icon's personal collection, plus films, videos and images of and by her. It's up until January 7, 2012 and admission is free.

Daphne Guinness was born in 1967 to Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne, and his second wife Suzanne Lisney. Jonathan himself is the son of Bryan Guinness and...wait for it...Diana Mitford of the renowned Mitford sisters. The Guinness family of Ireland of course is known for its accomplishments in banking, politics, and dark beer brewing. Daphne married Spyros Niarchos, son of Greek shipping billionaire Stavros Niarchos who was famously the business rival of Aristotle Onassis. Daphne and Spyros had three children and were divorced in 1999.

Since then she has become renowned in the world of fashion for her personal style and knowledge of fashion. She was great friends with English talents Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow, who both have tragically committed suicide. Her extremely romantic and imaginative style is a joy to see and I was looking forward to the exhibition at FIT.

When I am attending a press preview, I tend to rush in and circle around to try to take in the whole thing at once. Gradually though I slow down and the clothes begin to speak. The museum gallery space down in the basement level was designed by Ken Nintzel and divided into sections and rooms inspired by Daphne's New York City apartment so this show looks very different from exhibitions in the past like the Ralph Rucci one, where the gallery was open and expansive.

The show is organized by themes. The fantastic feather cape is part of the "Sparkle" group.

I loved these very precise jackets inspired by the tailoring of Savile Row in London.

A strict black tailored jacket is decorated with lace, a velvet ribbon and sparkling jewelry for a wonderful combination of structure and a touch of whimsy.

In contrast to that black tailoring are these white ensembles decorated with glittering stones. On the left is a silk chiffon dress by Alexander McQueen with rhinestones, and on the right is an ivory silk faile Chanel jacket with embroidered stone trim.

There were some futuristic, avant garde, sculptural silver dresses but my favorite piece was this narrow black sheath decorated with jewels around the neck and fur around the armholes by Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy. I love the simplicity of the line embellished with a little extravagance.

A P.R. woman came around and said that Daphne was arriving upstairs with Valerie Steele to speak and answer questions. I went upstairs just in time to see Valerie and Daphne crossing the building lobby to a microphone. Daphne was wearing a black tailored jacket and a white shirt with the white cuffs extended and the collar turned up. Around the collar was tied a burgundy velvet ribbon which trailed down her shoulder, and a pin decorated the ribbon. She had on black tights and the high black shoes with no heel; I think those are by Alexander McQueen. So the top was very romantic and the bottom was very modern.

The first question she got was "Who inspires you?" and without a beat she said, "Diana Vreeland." She spoke with a lovely English accent with a little bit of an Irish accent at the end of a sentence. She said that Diana Vreeland really "inhabited her clothes." Daphne's inspiration also comes from reading a lot by books, as she imagines what the heroine would be wearing. She said, to laughter, that her own sense of style was "a series of mistakes."

I raised my hand with others and Valerie Steele pointed and said, "White hair." That was me. I said, "Daphne, your grandmother was Diana Mitford and I wonder if you could talk about her and how she influenced you." "My grandmother had very strict style," she replied. "She was tall and had a vertical line. She was a writer and not very into fashion. My great-aunts Nancy and Debo went to the fashion shows and that is how I met Mr. Givenchy. But I am always happy to return to the simple, neat, vertical style of my grandmother." I thought her answer was so interesting because that is exactly what I had admired in her black Givenchy gown downstairs.

Someone asked her if she was inspired by contemporary artists and she said she was more inspired by the Old Masters like the seventeenth century Spanish painter Zuburán, who Carolyne Roehm had also named as a favorite artist. "I go back in time," said Daphne.

When asked to name what she was wearing, she stated that it was an "old McQueen jacket" and a white shirt and leggings which she makes. "I always wanted to wear men's suits," she said. "When the cut is right, it's a default position." She talked about the role of clothing. "You can use it as a defense. Growing up you know your group by the way you dress. I was the anti-Sloane Ranger. Instead of a little skirt and a little sweater, I had leather studded belts and leggings and was very grumpy so no one would come near me."

"My style used to be a protective tool and now it's not," she said to more laughter since now her style is a subject of great interest. "Chic is a kind of armor that protects you against the world."

A big reason she agreed to do the show was so that students at FIT and others could view the clothes and look at how they are made. "It was the right thing to do," she said, "so that people would be able to see this." Don't miss this show. It's an inspiration and I plan to return.

A Wonderful Wedding in the Woods

(click on photos to enlarge)
TD and I had the great pleasure of attending this past Sunday the wedding of our good friend Nicole Parker to her beau Chris King in the woods of New Hampshire. Well, we weren't exactly roughing it; the wedding was an exuberant celebration of style.
Nicole is a graphic designer and creative director and niece of our friend and neighbor Don Healy who climbed Mount Everest – you remember the Healys all. When a friend of Nicole's suggested she meet a mutual friend, Chris King, an Australian diplomat visiting New York, at Soho House, it was love at first sight. How could he resist Nicole's vivacious personality? They were soon a couple, traveling all over the world to meet. Now Chris is a diplomat with the Australian embassy in New Delhi, India, where the couple lives. And this past weekend they were officially married at the Healy compound in Stoddard, New Hampshire.
First, a spectacular invitation arrived in the mail. Seventy Australians were making the trip to the wedding in Stoddard which is just outside of Keene, so a map, a "boarding pass," and a "passport" were included.

TD and I drove up from Guilford, Connecticut, the day of the wedding and checked into the comfortable Lane Hotel in Keene. Then we headed up to the main event which was held at the Healys' Lakefalls Lodge. The lodge was conceived as a Great Camp in the Adirondack style, and its construction was begun by eccentric New York City divorcée Florence Brooks Aten in the 1920's until the Crash of '29 wiped out her wealth. Don Healy bought the property, which also includes a lake and smaller houses, in 1990.
We parked the car and walked up a gravel driveway. A wedding in New Hampshire should always begin with a gurgling brook and an old mill house, don't you think?

Up the road we passed the area where cocktails would be served after the ceremony. With its orange table clothes, it looked like a Christo installation.

The view from the lodge is out on to a lake and a hill opposite covered with trees. The fresh air was scented with pine and grass.

Rows of chairs were set up facing the lake and the hill beyond for a serene natural setting.

Hanging off the chairs were glass vases filled with orchids. So simple and so pretty. On each chair were red and orange streamers.

The ceremony started when the mother of the bride, Peggy Healy Parker, in a silky purple coat, came down the grassy aisle which had been strewn with red rose petals by three flower girls. Then eight bridesmaids and groomsmen emerged out of the lodge. The theme throughout was red as you can see from the vivid bridesmaids' dresses. Also in red was Andrea King, the celebrant and groom's mother.

And finally came Nicole on the arm of her uncle Don. Her dress was by Vera Wang and its skirt was layered with square silk organza petals with unfinished edges. That dress was beautiful from the front

and the back.

During the ceremony, Carrie Ashley Hill, the maid of honor, sang a poignant song to the couple.

And then they were husband and wife!

After cocktails on the lawn, we proceeded down the gravel road to a big white tent which was hung with buoyant red paper lanterns.

For dinner table assignments, guests were asked to pick up a post card which had their name and the name of a place which was important to the couple. We were seated at Santa Barbara.

The tables were decorated with a rich profusion of red roses.

As the night grew darker the tent glowed with red.

The paper lanterns created an exotic effect.

After dinner, a great rock and roll band from Boston took the stage. This crowd was really ready to party and the soon the joint was jumping. TD and I are not often in vicinity of a rock and roll band so we had fun dancing to one hit after another. Here are Nicole and Chris cutting up the dance floor –

When the reception ended, guests were invited to an after party back at the lodge. As we walked up the driveway we saw that the exterior rock walls of the lodge had been illuminated with red and orange lights. Small hamburgers were served and there was more music and dancing. Nicole arrived in her wedding dress, and I liked that she hadn't changed into a little frock for the after party. That Vera Wang wedding dress with its deconstructed edges was elaborate, but she looked very comfortable in it and made it her own which is a sign of style.
TD and I were ready to call it a night as the younger celebrants carried on. We walked down the driveway to the car and as I looked back over my shoulder past the colored stone walls through the tall French doors of the lodge I saw guests dancing wildly inside to Lady Gaga.