Pat Buckley

My fascination with Pat Buckley, who died last night, is one of those Truman Capote things. Mrs. Buckley was one of New York's most prominent "social x-rays" - the Society Doyennes who rule the fundraiser charity circuit, the socialites, wealthy women defined mostly by their marriages and their proximity to the power of the men they support.

Like Nan Kempner, Pat was a fashion plate (and, like Nan, she was an heiress - her father was a multimillionaire Canadian businessman).  Unlike Nan, it wasn't about pure Haute Couture for her - Pat was one of the quintessential proponents of American sportswear, a longtime client and friend of Bill Blass and Oscar de la Renta.  Pat was tall - around six feet - and wore her hair in a consistent cloud that towered over her.  When you cause a stir on size alone, dressing to be noticed is kind of beside the point.  Of course you will be.  And Mrs. Buckley seemed to know that.  Her style was akin to her personality - bold, and frank, and to hear people tell it, with a terrific sense of humor. 

People are saying today that with Nan and Pat gone, New York society will not be quite the same.  No doubt that's true; though it's also, probably, that in some ways the era where marrying well was the only option has really passed. Nan and Pat weren't, after all, the start of something - they were the tail end of an era that included Babe Paley, Slim Keith and others.  They were the young women of that set.

The passing of Mrs. Buckley led me back to Bill Blass' wonderful memoir Bare Blass, published just after his death.  Blass was a down-to-Earth member of New York's preppy set, and he was close to Buckley for just that reason.  He tells of how she enjoyed her fittings, hanging out in bra and pantyhose, smoking away.  And a hilarious story of how, in Bermuda, she caused a stir standing in the hall of their luxury hotel, trying to get the wife of the British Ambassador from her room, in just a shorty robe - a robe, he points out, that was made for a woman shorter than Pat.  That freedom with her body, which Kempner also had (Kempner caused a stir every year in Italy showing up poolside in a teeny bikini), seems somehow very liberated, very American, in its way.

Mrs. Buckley, of course, was also very supportive of her husband's career (she was his sister's roommate at Vassar, marrying him while he was working on God and Man at Yale), hosting dinners for editors of National Review (she was, by all accounts, a great cook), and close to the Reagan era set - Nancy, Mrs. Kissinger, Betsy Bloomingdale, etc.  She liked to profess that she was just a stay-at-home wife and mother... which is pretty impressive when the homes are Stamford, Park Avenue and a chalet in Switzerland. But like so many of these gals, I find myself admiring them far more than their spouses. Mrs. Buckley, in fact, was the one I always thought of when Elaine Stritch sang "The Ladies Who Lunch". She just seemd so much like that woman.  And yes, it's a shame that we will probably not see the likes of her - or them - again soon.

Comments

[Jennifer]

I hadn't remembered this until I was reading your piece today. I met Pat Buckley at the Brooklyn Museum when I went to the opening of the Charles James exhibit in 1980something-82 or 83...and she was at the Met's Gala for the Costume Institute each year that I was. She wore brown a lot now that I think of it. :) But year after year she looked exaclty the same. :)