by Ki Hackney

Trained by her both her mother and grandmother, when growing up in San Francisco, Nan Kempner, became a clotheshorse extraordinaire early on (receiving her first Christian Dior at age 19), and she turned that passion into a lifestyle; thanks, in part, to the largesse of her husband, Loeb banking heir, Thomas L. Kempner, whom she always referred to as “Tommy.”

Nan made the trek to the couture collections in Milan and Paris twice every year for 40 years, must have tried on seemingly every look that her favorite designers could create, from Valentino to Yves St. Laurent, for whom she functioned as his American muse. In the process, the glamorous New York extrovert on high, high heels, who served as the rail-thin inspiration for Tom Wolfe’s idiom, the “social X-ray,” amassed a wardrobe of 3,000 made-to-order costumes that filled every room in her 16-room duplex at Park Avenue and 79th Street, including, eventually, the guest room and the bedrooms that were once the private quarters for her children, and on and on.

While Nan was doing what she loved best, she inadvertently curated a museum-quality private collection of twentieth-century fashion from the 1950s to the early 2000s that simultaneously serves as a stunning example of the definitive free spirit: the modern American woman.

Tomorrow, The Metropolitan Museum celebrates Mrs. Kempner and her iconic style in an exhibition called “Nan Kempner: American Chic” featuring 75 ensembles from her extensive wardrobe. And while the clothes are authentic couture, the jewelry is also hers, but it is entirely fake.