Snob Appeal
Last week, French aristocrat/fashion designer/style icon Jacqueline de Ribes died at 96. I interviewed her in 2000. She was a pill.
In early 2000, I was assigned by New York Times Magazine Style Editor Amy Spindler to write a story about Yves Saint Laurent’s muses. Every one of them—Betty Catroux, Loulou de la Falaise, Jane Birkin, Charlotte Rampling, Andrée Putman, Gunilla Lindblad, Paloma Picasso, Colombe Pringle—showed up at the studio that cold January day for the photo session and interview. Everyone except Jacqueline de Ribes. She wanted to do her picture separately.
And then, after many faxes and phone calls from me and Amy, she finally agreed—three months after the original shoot, and days before the deadline—to have me over to her apartment on the Place du Palais-Bourbon for tea and a chat. I was ushered into her perfectly appointed salon by a butler, and when she swanned in, dressed in a couture pantsuit by Jean Paul Gaultier—her new chou-chou, now that Saint Laurent was heading toward retirement—she gave me an up-and-down, pinched her face with disapproval, sat down, and quickly let i…
