Indelible as her film career was, Lauren Bacall, who died Tuesday at age 89,
also left a lasting impression on the fashion industry. On Wednesday, a bevy of
designers sized up her influence through the years on their work and on American
style in general.
Isaac Mizrahi, whose first encounter with the screen siren occurred when he
was a 19-year-old working at Perry Ellis, said, “There was not a false bone in
her body. She had a very deep sense of integrity on every level. She embodied a
certain level of taste for women that was just smart. And she did that by being
true to herself and being honest, which is what they teach you in design school
and on fashion shoots.”
With her very New York way of looking at fashion, which called for “this kind
of skepticism,” she made a case to rebel against anything loud or vulgar,
Mizrahi said. “I don’t know that I could find another New Yorker, or American
for that matter, who has that,” he said. “I never saw her with an entourage.
There was never too much makeup. The hair was never too high. You only notice
her in the dress.”
Bacall actually got her start in the Garment District. As a high schooler in
1941, she took to modeling for the long-since-shuttered David Crystal and Sam
Friedlander collections, as well as famed composer Stephen Sondheim’s late
father Herbert Sondheim, who owned a dress company. At a 1996 book party for
Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stephen Sondheim told WWD on spotting Bacall, “Here comes
one of my father’s models.”
“I was a terrible model,” Bacall protested to Sondheim. “I was terrified and
bony.”
That didn’t keep Diana Vreeland from giving Bacall her seal of approval at
Harper’s Bazaar and photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe from photographing her. In
1942, she was green-lighted for a magazine shoot and the result was a stark
full-page image in March 1943 of a solemn-looking Bacall standing, with her
hands in her pockets, in front of what appears to be an American Red Cross blood
donor bank — caught the eye of Slim Keith, who was married to Howard Hawks at
the time. Before long, Bacall had relocated to Hollywood, dropped her given name
of “Betty” and added a second “l” to her surname to try to avoid any
mispronunciations.
As her film career and box office might rose, thanks in part to marrying
Humphrey Bogart, she maintained major star status without ever giving too much
away about her personal life, or barely anything to be more precise. During the
party Diane von Furstenberg threw for Bacall’s book “Be Myself and Then Some” in
2005, Bacall told WWD, “I can’t answer any questions. It’s a party and I’m too
excited.”
Exuberant as she was at that event, Bacall — unlike many of today’s
paparazzi-seeking starlets — never wore out her welcome on the red carpet or on
Seventh Avenue. While she avoided being in lock step with any one designer, the
honorary Academy Award winner would make the occasional cameo appearance — for
example, popping up beside Bianca Jagger at Yves Saint Laurent’s 1974 fashion
show at The Pierre hotel. While Norman Norell and Jean Louis were go-to
designers early on, she wore many others over the years, including Ferragamo,
Adolfo, Halston, Armani Privé and Eksandar.
In the Fifties and Sixties, Bacall was a familiar face with the Ferragamo
family as one of its more loyal clients, along with Audrey Hepburn, Ava Gardner
and Anna Magnani. Massimo Ferragamo, chairman of Ferragamo USA, said Wednesday,
“For my father Salvatore, Lauren Bacall was one of the most elegant and ladylike
actresses he ever had the pleasure of making custom shoes for. She was a very
special woman and a true example of grace and class. She will be greatly
missed.”
In one of her more successful films “Designing Women,” Bacall played a
fashion designer inspired by Helen Rose, whose designs she often wore. In her
biography, Bacall said she took the part to avoid facing Bogart’s eventually
terminal illness. The actress beat out Grace Kelly for the role and later wrote,
“She got the prince, I got the part.”
Decades after helping to define the Golden Age of Hollywood with her
side-parted wavy long bob and bold red lipstick, Bacall landed on People
magazine’s Most Beautiful People list in 1997 at the age of 72. Vanity Fair
ranked her on its International Best-Dressed List in 2000 and three years later
the Council of Fashion Designers of America honored her iconic style. Former
CFDA president Stan Herman said Bacall was “a unanimous choice. There are very
few women who look the way she did.
“When I called her to tell her the news, she was very surprised,” Herman
said. “She also wanted to know if there was money involved. I’m not sure if she
was kidding or not.”
While on-screen, Bacall favored traffic-stopping styles like a fitted bodice
Falkenstein off-the-shoulder taffeta cocktail dress and an Athena sharkskin suit
with scallop details and a fur-trimmed stole, she opted for an all-black pants
and jacket combo for the CFDA Awards. Her consistently pulled-together yet
devil-may-care fashion sense continued to cast an influence on such designers as
Donna Karan, Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. Striking as she was on-screen and
on-stage, Bacall’s stylist-free wardrobe was noticeably unrehearsed.
Adolfo Sardina recalled Wednesday how he had recognized the actress
immediately when she wandered into his West 56th Street hat boutique for the
first time one afternoon in 1960. “She came to my place and said, ‘Oh, I like
the way you do what you do. Would you make me some berets?’” he said. “She
really had a great style. The way you saw her in the movies was really the exact
same look that she was in person. Later in life, when we all got old, she still
had that same chic.”
After the designer expanded into ready-to-wear and moved into a 57th Street
store “when life became more exciting,” Bacall continued to buy his clothes
through the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. “I really truly was a great admirer
of Miss Bacall’s. She was marvelous,” Sardina said.
Karan said Wednesday, “Lauren Bacall was a true icon. She was a woman of
style and strength, one that inspired us all, especially those of us in the
fashion world. She seduced us with her deep voice, her glamour and amazing
sophistication. We will remember her always.”
A native New Yorker, the actress never lost sight of her straight-shooting
ways. At a candlelit Gucci-sponsored dinner during the 1999 Venice Biennale,
Bacall told WWD, “I don’t even know Tom Ford, but I intend to become his best
friend tonight.”
London-based designer Eskandar Nabavi experienced that razor-sharp wit in
working with her as a private client. At the opening of his New York store,
Bacall was bowled over by the bountiful Beluga caviar “She said, ‘Oh, fabulous —
this is like the old days,’” the designer said.
When Bacall was disappointed to learn she couldn’t shop during the party, he
suggested she return to see him. “She looked at me with those eyes and said,
‘Will there be caviar?’” he said with a laugh. And much to her delight he did: a
half-kilo tin, which she assured Nabavi she would share with her son, Sam
Robards, when he was in town.
When browsing with Nabavi, she would walk around and look at everything, but
always wanted pants, especially loose-fitting, flowy ones. Cashmere sweaters,
suede shirts and heavyweight silk pieces were often on her checklist. And once
her order was in place, Bacall liked to chat over tea. “She would talk about
herself some, but not very much. She would talk about her dog, Miss Sophie, who
had to travel on the seat beside her on American Airlines or she wouldn’t go on
the trip. She would talk about how everything had become so expensive in the
world. She would talk about anything really,” Nabavi said.
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