Countess Jacqueline de Ribes, the subject of this year’s Costume Institute Exhibition at the Met, falls firmly in this camp. Along with other fashion luminaries and all round standout dames such as Diana Vreeland and Iris Apfel, she is one of a rare breed of woman that we at Kotur look to time and time again, one of those who manages to make their own individual style statements with strength and often a small smirk, stopping us all in our tracks and setting new notions of beauty as they go.

Working in her studio, 1985.

The daughter of a count and wife of Edouard, Vicomte de Ribes, Jacqueline is a French aristocrat known for her striking beauty and trailblazing approach to glamour. Now a Great Grandmother of three, she cannot however be pigeonholed simply as an impeccably dressed Countess. Long fascinated by the world of fashion and creativity she found at her fingertips growing up in Paris, she rolled her sleeves up and immersed herself in it wherever she could – and at a time when others like her did not do the same. “I was always looking for a way to escape the cage,” she told Harpers recently. She has turned her hand to everything from television production to interior design and even wrote an anonymous column for French Marie Claire on ‘how to be chic on 2 francs,’ for a while, as well as managing the Marquis de Cuevas’s International Ballet and finally launching her own fashion label in 1982, running it until 1995.

      All this has been done against a backdrop of a life lived making the very most of the fashion on offer to her – which, it turned out, was the best of the best – as found in full evidence at the Met. For her months long skiing adventures, de Ribes had huge fox fur hats dyed to match each jacket, for the parties there was the most beautiful couture courtesy of the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino or Marc Bohan of Dior and for the real epitomy of dressing up, the fancy dress balls she frequented, there were extraordinary concoctions of dresses, each made up of customized outfits created to cause the ultimate effect.

De Ribes at Baron Alexis de Rédé’s Bal Oriental in Paris, 1969.

Of one particular occasion, when she went to dinner with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor before Baron Alexis de Redé’s “Bal Oriental in 1969, Oscar de la Renta, a fellow guest, told Vanity Fair in 2010, “The first course, the second course, the third course, and finally dessert arrived, and still Jacqueline de Ribes had not appeared. The Duke was furious! Suddenly the dining-room doors opened, and in glided the Vicomtesse de Ribes. An exotic vision, the aristocratic beauty was swaddled from the pinnacle of her tasseled hat to the tips of her pointed slippers in a fantastically opulent Turkish disguise, ingeniously cobbled together by the Vicomtesse herself from three of her old haute couture dresses; organza lamé from a remnant market; and a sable cape, acquired from an impoverished ballerina. It was a show. And she was the star. No one knew like Jacqueline the power of an entrance.”

De Ribes with Diana Vreeland

Jacqueline de Ribes, dress by Yves Saint Laurent, Paris, July 31, 1962

De Ribes credits that other doyenne of individual chic and general KOTUR heroine Diana Vreeland as being the person who encouraged her to be brave enough to blaze her own trail. She was shot by Richard Avedon for Harpers Bazaar in 1955, and told the magazine last year that, “At that time I was not so secure. Diana did help me. She told me, ‘Jacqueline, don’t be afraid. Whatever you do, just remember: Follow your instincts and you’ll never be wrong.” And, from the huge fox fur hats to the customized couture, the baby pink ruffles to the exquisitely draped Grecian Dior, and even to the feathered headdresses, she wasn’t. There’s a style lesson in we at KOTUR love to celebrate – and that’s well worth learning.

Photo courtesy of the Met Museum, Getty Images, AP Images, AGIP/Rue des Archives/Granger, NYC, Richard Avedon, David Lees/The Life Images Collection

Whether the image of a woman resplendent in a kaftan conjures up Vreeland herself, reclining in her red sitting room, Elizabeth Taylor decked out in her brocade versions complete with jewels, Kate Moss cruising up the gangplank to Club 55 in Saint Tropez for lunch, Talitha Getty, beautiful on a Moroccan rooftop or even Auntie Mame, there is an air of nonchalance and spirit of eccentricity inherent in this way of dressing that we adore. It suggests a love of adventure, a fuss free approach that leaves plenty of room for good times and a relaxed sort of fabulousness you just can’t bottle. Kaftan wearers are invariably the most fun women at the party – most likely, equal parts glamorous and eccentric. They also look fantastic. Dripping in print or embroidery, clad in wonderful colour, swathed in luxurious fabrics – and then paired with some simple flats – this is a look that never dates and never ceases to make the best sort of statement.

In our designs at KOTUR, the idea is always to deliver just this sort of glamour.  It’s the kind that wears as well with jeans as it does with cocktail dresses, that takes you somewhere in your imagination, somewhere exotic and indulgent, without ever seeming forced. Gyspet style speaks to the kaftan wearer in all of us. Look to our designs, and you’ll see that they do, too.

Click through our gallery above to see some of our very favorite examples of wonderful kaftan wearers. Brilliantly bohemian, inordinately glamorous and effortlessly fabulous, these are women dressing with just a little bit of decadence, and we love them for it. Because too much of a good thing really can be wonderful.

Photo Courtesy:

1. Talitha Getty, Patrick Lichfield, Vogue, January 15, 1970
2. Elizabeth Taylor, That’s Entertainment (1974)
3. Diana Vreeland, photo by Horst p Horst in her ‘Garden from Hell’ 1979
4. Rosalind Russell in the role of Auntie Mame (1958)
5. Donna Marella Agnelli, photo by Horst P. Horst featured in Horst Interiors by Barbara Plumb, 1993
6. Catherline Deneuve, Vogue, 1966
7. Lee Radziwill in an Ottoman style Kaftan, Cecil Beaton
8. Grace Kelly, Getty Images
9.  Diane Von Fuerstenberg, 1970s
10. Marisa Berenson in gold caftan by Tina Leser with rings by Gripoix, Photo by Henry Clarke 1968
11. Ashley Oslen in vintage caftan by Neilson Barnard/ Getty Images
12. Kate Moss cruising up the gangplank to Club 55 in Saint Tropez by fameflynet.uk.com
13.  Margherita Missoni by Vittorio Zunino Celotto
14. Jerry Hall, 1975
15. Nicole Richie by Jeffrey Mayer
16.  Sheikha Mozah of Qatar in Chanel Spring 2011 Haute Couture

Vreeland and her husband Reed moved into their apartment at 550 Park Avenue in 1955, charging designer Billy Baldwin with the decoration. His brief for her famous sitting room? A garden – but not any old garden, Vreeland wanted a ‘garden in hell.’ Baldwin, luckily, was not daunted.  “I knew what it meant: red. I searched for an eternity before I found exactly the right material- in John Fowler’s shop in London. It was scarlet chintz with brilliant Persian flowers. I raced home with yards and yards of it and we covered the whole room – walls, curtains, furniture, the works.” The result came with walls draped in that chintz and covered in books. Matching fabric used as huge swathes of curtains only served to intensify the look. Vreeland’s cushion covered sofas (some of which were made by the lady herself,) jostled for position with endless small chairs – one, covered in leopard print. In front of her bookshelves stood a painted screen – acquired, according to AD, by her parents on their European honeymoon. Round the corner of her L shaped living room was Vreeland’s dining room, featuring yet another wall full of her much treasured books and coming this time covered in stripes from the walls to the curtains to the banquettes.

In her bedroom (Reed and Diana had separate ones,) blue floral fabric similiar to that of the drawing room created an equally full on effect. Draped across her walls and her bed for a sort of English country look gone hypercolour and given a shot of glamour via a Louis XVI gilt mirror above a table adorned with family photographs and perfume bottles, it was no less of an event than the living room. It was said that, somewhere in it, a few spare square feet near a telephone was all that she dedicated to an office. The rest of the apartment was completely given over to her furnishings, her things she had collected, her personal photographs and her art, most of which came with a personal story. It was Vreeland herself who once said, “You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It’s a way of life. Without it, you’re nobody.” Living here, she would never have been short of inspiration.

Pictures:

1. Vreeland photographed by Horst P Horst in her ‘Garden from hell’ 1979

2 – 7 Vreeland’s apartment photographed for Architectural Digest in 1975.

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/celebrity-homes/2012/diana-vreeland-new-york-apartment-article

Launching next week, specialist online vintage fashion auction house Kerry Taylor are selling some key pieces of Vreeland’s personal wardrobe, available for the first time ever. Taking in such design classics as a couture, be-jewelled velvet Saint Laurent evening ensemble created especially for her to wear to the Metropolitan Museum’s ‘Royal India’ exhibition opening in 1985 and a 1968 YSL Safari jacket, plus her famous ivory cigarette holder, it’s a small selection of items that not only perfectly reflect Vreeland’s sense of style but also serve as design classics that would be amazing additions to any modern wardrobe.

Click through our gallery above for some of our very favorite Vreeland images and words of wisdom.

Select items from Diana Vreeland’s wardrobe are available to bid on at auction at Kerry Taylor’s Passion for Fashion Sale launching on 25th June here http://www.kerrytaylorauctions.com/sales/