In the pantheon of twentieth-century interior design, few names carry the quiet authority of Billy Baldwin (1903–1983). Known simply as “Billy” to clients who ranged from Jackie Kennedy to Babe Paley, Baldwin defined a distinctly American elegance: urbane, tailored, and timeless. If Dorothy Draper conjured fantasy and Sister Parish invented cozy chic, Baldwin distilled modernismContinue reading “Billy Baldwin: The Dean of American Decoration”
Tag Archives: Babe Paley
Truman Capote’s Swans: Society’s Last Great Myth
In the gilded world of mid-century society, there existed a rarefied circle of women who seemed to embody elegance itself. They were wealthy, beautiful, impeccably dressed — but above all, they were admired for their poise. Truman Capote, who both adored and betrayed them, christened them his “swans.” To this day, their names evoke aContinue reading “Truman Capote’s Swans: Society’s Last Great Myth”
Babe Paley: The Perfection of Style
In the constellation of twentieth-century American society, no star glittered quite like Babe Paley (1915–1978). Born Barbara Cushing in Boston — one of the famed “Cushing Sisters,” whose marriages connected them to American dynasties — she rose to become not merely a socialite but a myth: the woman who defined what it meant to beContinue reading “Babe Paley: The Perfection of Style”
My World of Interiors 