Lee Radziwill’s recent death, at the age of 85, marks the end of an era for many enamoured of the Camelot myth.
As one of writer Truman Capote’s “swans” she led a charmed life, marrying three times but retaining her aristocratic name, following her marriage to Prince Stanislaw Radziwill.
A style icon in her own right, Radziwill embraced edgier designers than her sister Jackie Kennedy Onassis and was the first to adopt Mila Schon and Courreges adapting them to her signature minimalist style of chignons and boat necks. One of her most notable moments was her Guy Laroche outfit to the famous Black and White Ball of 1966.
Though she was eclipsed by Jackie, her affiliation with and enthusiasm for fashion never waned. She was a muse for Tory Burch, and an ambassador for Giorgio Armani and entered the Vanity Fair Hall of Fame in 1996. She was frequently seen on the front row of Giambattista Valli’s shows and took designer Marc Jacobs under her wing, helping him to decorate his home in Paris – with bon chic bon genre brands Puiforcat and D Porthault. Allegedly she told him that initials on linen were simply not done.
Her interior style was as distinctive as her clothes choices. She had apartments in New York and one in the 16th arondissement in Paris, where she decorated it with artistic flair and Christian Liaigre pieces. Her memoir, Happy Times, published by Assouline, and its follow-up Lee, documents her life in personal photographs, dispelling the myth of a rift with her sister.
