Adorable Story #23: Nan Kempner

The quintessential New York socialite

“There are no chic women in America. The one exception is Nan Kempner.”

— Diana Vreeland

American socialite and fashion writer Nan Kempner relaxing after a day on the slopes at Sugarbush Mountain ski resort in Vermont, April 1960 — © Photo by Slim Aarons / Gettyimages⁠

Nan Kempner was the quintessential New York socialite. With her slim figure, bold fashion sense and unabashed love of the limelight, she dominated the social scene for five decades.

Early Life

Born Nancy Field Schlesinger in 1930, Nan grew up in San Francisco as the only child of Albert Schlesinger (owner of S&C Motors auto dealership) and his wife Irma Field Schlesinger, a socialite.

Both her parents came from affluent San Franciscan families of jewish descends.

In San Francisco, Nan attended the city’s most prestigious schools — Hamlin School for Girls and Grant — and was known as a bright, if lonely, child who immersed herself in fashion and cookbooks, dreaming of the glamorous life.

Her father made sure to put his money into her life, her mother her wardrobe and advice:

“heels are your best friend”.

Nan considered her mother a model of unattainable style so she experimented with her clothes trying to imitate her. At 12 she was already stealing her clothes and she went on a diet using lettuce leaves instead of bread for her sandwiches.

Her father had told her early on that “you can’t count on your face, you better be interesting.”

And Nan did it, betting everything on her charisma.

After high school, she headed to Connecticut College for Women for a brief stint studying Art History, before transferring to study abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris for her junior year in 1950.

In 1998 she recalled:

“Believe me, getting to Paris was like getting a green pass. My great love was George Plimpton, who was studying at Cambridge in 1951. I did a lot of commuting, as did he. I loved him dearly, and he remained a great friend until his death a year ago, which I think was one of the sadder things that ever happened.”

At 20, in Paris with her mother, she cried all her tears in the Dior atelier because her substantial pocket money given by her father was not enough to buy the white satin dress with matching coat that had bewitched her.

Her clamors reached a very young Yves Saint Laurent, then assistant to the couturier, who satisfied her by lowering the price until it was finally accessible. It was the beginning of two things: a great friendship with YSL and the endless couture collection of Nan Kempner.

Meeting Tom

In the summer of 1951, during a stopover in New York on the way back from Paris, the 21-year-old Nan had a fateful encounter. She was crossing Madison Avenue at 72nd Street, and a car stopped: it was her high school friend Clarence Heller, who was with a Yale graduate named Tom Kempner.

“Tommy and I traded insults all night,” Nan recalled of their first meeting over drinks at the Monkey Bar, in New York. “Dislike at first sight grew into great, passionate, sexy love.”