​The are many Easter eggs hidden in Bill Blass’s posthumously published memoir Bare Blass. One of the best concerns his friend Jerry Zipkin, the New York socialite who strolled into history as First Lady Nancy Reagan’s gay best friend and Nouvelle Society’s favorite walker. Zipkin was a polarizing figure, as beloved by some as he was despised by others. Bill Blass was in the first camp. He liked Jerry Zipkin very much.
 
One day, Bill Blass asked a recently hired assistant to get Zipkin on the line. She leafed through Bill’s private address book, filled with the top-secret telephone numbers of the rich and the fashionable. There were two listings for Jerry Zipkin. The first was busy, so she tried the second. Zipkin answered and upon realizing an assistant for Bill Blass was on the other end, he hissed, “This is the private line for Nancy Reagan!”

​Even among his friends, Jerry Zipkin was known for his imperiousness. Once, Mortimer’s committed a social faux pas by playing “God Save the Queen” during Princess Margaret’s visit to the restaurant. The Princess was miffed. The society columnist Taki, with whom she was dining, quipped, “It is not for you ma’am. It’s for Jerry Zipkin.” [via the Financial Times]

Image Credit: Ronnie & Nancy, Their Path to the White House

"Democracy is sort of an arrangement, isn’t it?"

Diana Vreeland, via  John Fairchild,The Fashionable Savages    

At age seventy-eight, Diana Vreeland performed a curtsy so magnificent and deep that it might have sent even someone even half her age toppling to the ground. It suggests that though she considered democracy an arrangement, she viewed a monarchy as a bestowed-by-God right. Note the perplexed look of Jerry Zipkin whose turn is apparently next. He must be wondering how he could even begin to compete. 

Image Credit: ​Entertaining at the White House with Nancy Reagan