Babe Paley was more than just a socialite – she was Truman Capote's most beloved swan and a style icon of the 20th century. Tatler looks back at her impeccable fashion
Being photographed for Vogue in 1946 On the cover of American Vogue, 1946. Photo by Horst P. Horst (L-R) Gloria Guinness, Bill and Babe Paley at Truman Capote's Black & White Ball in 1966. the Paley Apartment - St Regis Barbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimer Paley was a New York socialite, known for her impeccable dress sense and manners. She was working as a fashion editor for Vogue Magazine in New York City when she met and married her first husband, Standard Oil heir Stanley Mortimer, Jr. in 1940. The couple had two children but divorced a few years later. In 1947, Babe remarried to CBS founder William "Bill" S. Paley. The couple led a lavish life - Babe spent fortunes on her outfits, regularly buying haute couture ensembles from the major international fashion houses, and earned her place on the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1958. Before their famous falling out, long time friend Truman Capote once quoted "Babe Paley had only one fault. She was perfect. Otherwise, she was perfect." Babe Paley died of lung cancer at the age of 63 on July 6, 1978 and is buried in a church cemetery in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. When her husband died in 1990, he was buried next to her.
La donna più elegante del mondo, che acquista intere collezioni Givenchy e Valentino, la prima a decorare una borsa con un foulard: questa è Babe Paley
The British society bible has named Sabine Getty, Hayley Bloomingdale and Alice Naylor-Leyland as the new It girls of today. They compared them to the It girls of the 1950s, including Babe Paley.
In the summer of 1957, author Carol Prisant spent six weeks as an au pair for the one and only Babe Paley and her husband Bill. Here, how they changed her life.
Media mogul William S. Paley and his socialite wife Barbara ‘Babe’ Cushing Mortimer Paley were more than just a complex ‘It’ couple — their famous New York soirées took American style and glamour to dizzying new heights.
Babe Paley was more than just a socialite – she was Truman Capote's most beloved swan and a style icon of the 20th century. Tatler looks back at her impeccable fashion
Mrs. Stanley Grafton Mortimer Jr. , world's best dressed woman at her home in Hobe Sound, Florida, 1947
Babe Paley by Norman Parkinson 1952
Learn more about the life and relationships of socialite and tastemaker Babe Paley, who's portrayed by Naomi Watts in 'Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.'
From Georgia O'Keeffe to Babe Paley, these trailblazers chose very different styles.
The fashionable Babe lived with her husband, Bill, in a Louis XVI–style apartment, magically transformed into a tented oasis by the interior decorator
Babe Paley was more than just a socialite – she was Truman Capote's most beloved swan and a style icon of the 20th century. Tatler looks back at her impeccable fashion
What earns you a place in the IT Girl Canon? A look back at 34 legends.
The Cushing sisters turned the practice of ‘marrying well’ into an art form. With six high profile marriages they led a life marked by fame, misery, unimaginable wealth, and famous friends.
View photos of Truman Capote's famed 'swans': Lee Radziwill, Babe Paley, Slim Keith & more.
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Being photographed for Vogue in 1946 On the cover of American Vogue, 1946. Photo by Horst P. Horst ...
Gloria Vanderbilt, Lee Radziwill, Babe Paley, and more posed at home for legendary photographer Horst. P. Horst.
Barbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimer Paley was born in Boston in 1915 to a famous brain surgeon father, and little is known of her mother Katharine Stone Crowell Cushing. She was undoubtedly one of the...
View photos of Truman Capote's famed 'swans': Lee Radziwill, Babe Paley, Slim Keith & more.
Babe Paley was undoubtedly one of America's most celebrated socialites and style icons. Born into a wealthy family and later married to an oil tycoon, Babe Paley maintained lavish costume jewelry with which she inspired many fashion designers, including Charles James and Valentino.
La donna più elegante del mondo, che acquista intere collezioni Givenchy e Valentino, la prima a decorare una borsa con un foulard: questa è Babe Paley
"Babe Paley had only one fault, she was perfect. Otherwise, she was perfect." -Truman Capote Ever since I read this book about 15 years ago, Babe Paley has been my personal style icon. The term "personal style icon" kind of makes me want to roll my eyes at myself, but there is really no better way to say it. Is it possible to be overstated and understated at the same time? That's the sensibility I get from Babe. She lived in a grand and elegant way, but there was an approachability to her that set her apart from her contemporaries (Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill, Slim Keith and C.Z. Guest). It's hard to think of today's equivalent. Lauren Bush or Aerin Lauder, perhaps? If you find Babe as interesting as I do, you can read more about her in The Sisters by David Grafton, Answered Prayers by Truman Capote and portions of Capote biographies by Gerald Clarke or George Plimpton. Who are your style icons?
Babe Paley was more than just a socialite – she was Truman Capote's most beloved swan and a style icon of the 20th century. Tatler looks back at her impeccable fashion
Unless you've been a recluse over the past week, you have likely seen photos of last week's Met Gala. I'm not going to get into too much detail about it except to say that my picks for the three best-dressed guests were Lauren Santo Domingo, Vanessa Traina, and Plum Sykes, all of whom work in the fashion world. Plum Sykes's decision to wear scarlet satin Manolo Blahniks with her pale pink column dress especially captured my attention because the color combination was a bit unexpected. And yet, it was really quite smashing, with Sykes's red shoes making her prim gown sing. It also reminded me of how much I love this color pairing. (I did not want to fool with obtaining permission from Getty Images to use their photo of Sykes, so you'll have to click here to see her stepping out to the Gala.) Rarely do you see pink and red used together within the same room. In fashion layouts, however, you do. When standing alone, pink can appear slightly (or sometimes sticky) sweet. But when dashes of red are thrown in for flavor, the effect can be sophisticated and effervescent. Could this be why Babe Paley wore pink and red for her Round Hill, Jamaica portrait? One interior designer who did mix the two colors together to great effect was David Hicks. Hicks, however, took a brash approach to the pairing, using pinks that had vigor and swagger. Cerises, scarlets, and magentas mingled to create rooms of bravado, fit for even the most manly of men. If all of this sounds too swashbuckling, you could take your cue from Hicks (or even Mark Hampton, whose 1970s-era Manhattan apartment included a red and pink bedroom) but tone it down for more feminine sensibilities. Paint a room's walls in lacquered aubergine and upholster its furnishings in pink silk and red damask. I think that such a room would like really pretty...or, to use a phrase that gets on my nerves, such a room would look "very gala." A 1962 Ormond Gigli photo of Halston back in his early days as a milliner. Veruschka photographed in 1970 wearing a jeweled necklace and beaded red, pink, and white silk headdress. A David Hicks-designed room in Yorkshire. The curtains are red tweed, while the chairs appear to be upholstered in red leather. The table is covered in a fuschia silk cloth. The Paris apartment of Rambert Rigaud. (Photo from Vogue, March 2013) The Maharaja of Jaipur (photo by Constantin Joffe) The dining room at Britwell Salome, decorated by David Hicks, was energized with cerise velvet-upholstered wingchairs and a red silk damask tablecloth. The early Manhattan apartment of Mark and Duane Hampton. Their bedroom was decorated in shades of magenta and pink with some red thrown in for good measure. Serge Obolensky photographed by Slim Aarons at the St. Regis Roof, New York. I can't really tell if the room was mostly pink or if there was some red somewhere (perhaps the ceiling?) Photo of Paley and Obolensky from A Wonderful Time: An Intimate Portrait of the Good Life by Slim Aarons; Hicks and Hampton photos from David Hicks: Designer; Maharaja of Jaipur photo from The World in Vogue 1893-1963.
Era más que una socialite. Ella era la 'doyenne' de la escena social de Nueva York, el cisne más querido de Truman Capote y un icono de estilo del siglo XX. Fallecía un día como hoy de 1978.
Ph. Erwin Blumenfeld, 1947 . Barbara Cushing in Boston (July 5th, 1015), she was the daughter of world-renowned brain surgeon Dr. Harvey Cushing, who was professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, Harv…
La donna più elegante del mondo, che acquista intere collezioni Givenchy e Valentino, la prima a decorare una borsa con un foulard: questa è Babe Paley
Babe Paley was undoubtedly one of America's most celebrated socialites and style icons. Born into a wealthy family and later married to an oil tycoon, Babe Paley maintained lavish costume jewelry with which she inspired many fashion designers, including Charles James and Valentino.
Babe Paley was more than just a socialite – she was Truman Capote's most beloved swan and a style icon of the 20th century. Tatler looks back at her impeccable fashion
Feud: Capote's Women will focus on those who froze him out after he caricatured them in his unpublished novel, ‘Answered Prayers’
The Original Bill Paley 1996 by Kate Paley. 1st Ed hardcover with pictorial inset to the front cover, no dust jacket as issued. In the famous Slim Aarons photograph of Babe Paley, poolside at her Round Hill, Jamaican vacation home (see A Wonderful Time), her husband Bill is in the background with a camera of his own. He was an amateur photographer whose social connections meant he shared subjects with many professional photographers. His most frequent subject was his wife Babe. Following Paley’s death, his daughter Kate collected them into this small and little known book. Copies rarely come available. NPT Books, a division of Trent Antiques, has a large collection of used and out of print books on art, architecture, decoration and antiques with a focus on 1st editions, signed and limited editions.
Jackie Kennedy, Babe Paley and other socialites made New York eateries like La Côte Basque, The Colony and La Grenouille chic.
