Inside the Best Closet Ever • Nan Kempner: American Chic at The Costume Institute

For their winter exhibition, The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art has decided to honor one of its greatest benefactors with Nan Kempner: American Chic. Rather than focus on a single designer, historical period or design concept, the curators have chosen to highlight the personal style of one person, and Nan Kempner, who died last year from emphysema, was more than just another rich lady. She was widely believed to be, among other things, the model for the "social X-rays" in Tom Wolfe's The bonfire of the vanities, as well as one of the first people to have modern plastic surgery. As much of a social star as one could be before the days of the Hilton Sisters, she thrived in the days when the wealthy would be appalled at the thought of borrowing clothes suggested by PR people. Mrs. Kempner carefully chose the best clothes money could buy. She amassed a vast wardrobe of thousands of pieces, but each was carefully considered as an element of her individual style. She was unashamed  of her passion for clothes, and famously kept her figure to be able to fit into the haute couture runway samples which she often purchased at a discount, allowing her to acquire even more clothes. The combination of vanity and the knowledge that she was not a great natural beauty led Mrs. Kempner to play to her greatest strengths, including her willowy physique and flawless taste. Her singular sense of style made her a fixture on the pages of the early newspaper-style version of W. Her rarefied lifestyle afforded her the opportunity and need for every type of attire from casual to the grandest of gowns. It would be easy to dismiss her as another vapid, overprivileged society clotheshorse and many did, but after her death, the Costume Institute's show has transformed her into one of the greatest collectors of couture from the second half of the 20th century.

The fashion glutton into becomes a passionate art collector. Her fame and close relationships with and patronage of major designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Oscar de la Renta caused her to influence modern style for a certain type of luxe-minded woman. The show includes 75 ensembles, and much of the rest of her wardrobe has been used as an ingenious backdrop for the central display, recreating her astonishingly vast closet, arranged by category and color. The sheer audacity of it all brings life into the Costume Institute's normally dreary basement maze of a gallery. The show illuminates how Mrs. Kempner was able to choose pieces that were emblematic examples of a designer's style without losing her own identity. An example would be a black evening ensemble from one of John Galliano's first Christian Dior collections. It showed the designer's genius at updating iconic Dior imagery without becoming an overwhelming showpiece. A group of Grès jersey gowns shows her eye for the best of a great designer's work, but the exhibition showcases her exhaustive assortment from her favorite, Yves Saint Laurent more than any other designer.
This is a more subdued show than some recent ones, but rather than creating fanciful displays of runway pieces that never saw the inside of a anyone's closet it shows clothes that someone actually wore, and many looks are accompanied by pictures of the much photographed  Mrs. Kempner wearing them to various social functions. It is an entertaining lesson in how one person developed her flawless eye for assembling a perfect ensemble and clearly expressing her personality as well. She took the best of what was available and took it to the next level by incorporating it into her own individuality, a kind of extended performance art unto itself.

Nan Kempner: American Chic runs through March 4, 2007 at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, Upper East Side
Photos from The Metropolitan Museum of Art