Gloria Vanderbilt, Heiress, Artist and Fashion Designer Dies at 95
Heiress, artist and fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt, whose fame had multiple incarnations, died at her New York home at the age of 95.
Her death was announced Monday morning during an on-air tribute by her son, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who cited the cause of death as advanced stomach cancer.
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Her gilded lineage to Cornelius Vanderbilt did not deter her from stamping her name on America’s favorite well-worn style — jeans. Fiercely private, despite her international status, Vanderbilt’s later life was more solitary than many might have surmised. Even in her early 90s, Vanderbilt could be found every day at work in her art studio.
Vanderbilt was only 15 months old, when her father Reginald died. After that loss, her mother, who had been a teenage bride, became a fixture on the European society circuit and Vanderbilt was raised by a doting nurse. At the age of 10, Vanderbilt was part of a contentious custody battle that was known as “the trial of the century.” The standoff pitted her mother on one side and her paternal aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney on the other, prompting the tabloids to label her, “poor little rich girl.” Her mother’s absence resulted in the court giving custody to her aunt.
Vanderbilt’s high school education at what is now known as the Wheeler School in Providence was cut short by a vacation to California. In Hollywood, she dated Errol Flynn and turned her attention to modeling. She was later linked to oOther stars like Ray Milland. Her first marriage to Pasquale Di Ciccio ended in 1945 and later that year she wed Leopold Stokowski – the conductor who was 43 years older. The couple had two sons Stan and Chris. After an affair with Frank Sinatra, Vanderbilt and Stokowski squared offer in court for custody of their sons, which Vanderbilt won. A decade later Vanderbilt divorced again and married “12 Angry Men” movie director Sidney Lumet. The couple later divorced and the designer wed Wyatt Emory Cooper with whom she had sons Anderson and Carter.
In 1978, Cooper died during heart bypass surgery and 10 years later Vanderbilt’s 23-year-old son Cooper leapt to his death from the terrace of her Manhattan penthouse, despite her pleas not to. To some degree, the designer tried to take refuge from that pain through self-expression and art.
Donna Karan said Monday, “She was an amazing woman on so many levels. She was always an icon of a woman who paved her way.”
Karan added that Vanderbilt’s son, Anderson Cooper “is a legacy forever.”
“He is an amazing man who truly makes a difference in this world in every way,” said Karan, noting Cooper carries the torch of all his mother leaves behind.
As a businesswoman she forged new ground beyond her swan-logoed designer jeans. In 1946, the Gloria Vanderbilt Corp licensed its name to Les Parfums du Chevalier D’Eon to promote a line of cosmetics in Europe, making her the first American company to do license its name to a French company. The contract called for a minimum royalty guarantee of 1 million francs a year.
She finessed her art skills by enrolling at the Art Students League of New York. Vanderbilt pursued an acting career before getting into fashion full-time, making cameos on such shows as “Playhouse 90” and “The Dick Powell Show.”
Stan Herman, the former president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, recalled meeting Vanderbilt in the late Sixties at a Pittsburgh fashion show where she was also previewing her art. “I was completely taken with her, the art and her personality.” Herman said. “She was certainly one of the pioneers of the society celebrity becoming a designer. She will be remembered for the beautiful curve on the back side of her jeans. Women fell in love with her jeans.”
In the “Me Decade” Seventies, the designer had amassed a range of perfumes, sportswear and other licensed products. Known to be an early-to bed, early-to-rise, designer didn’t stay up to watch the commercial that launched her jeans line with Murjani USA during the 1978 Academy Awards. But she did have the marketing savviness to show guests at her Studio 54 fall show a taste of the $1 million campaign before the models hit the runway. The jeans’ logo – which was stamped on the right rear pocket – was inspired by former-actress Vanderbilt’s role in “The Swan” by Molnar.
Calvin Klein seemed to defer to Vanderbilt, when asked by WWD in 2003, if he started the designer jeans craze. “I think Gloria Vanderbilt was in it before me. She was a woman of great style – maybe not a designer.”
In 1977, she added furs to her design portfolio through a deal with Valerie-Schreibman & Raphael Ltd. That same year Vanderbilt took full control of her design operations in what she described at that time as “a complete reorganization of her company.” Vanderbilt also relocated her design studio from United Nations Plaza to 550 Seventh Avenue – the heart of New York City’s garment center. Her art career ran parallel to her fashion one.
As an artist, old and new photographs, lace doilies, decals, fabrics, aluminum foil, postcards, greeting cards and various knick-knacks were part of the arsenal that she used for collages. WWD’s critique of her 1977 collage book noted that her talent “demands more respect than public relations puffery. Her eye is a perfectly beautiful Victorian one; cluttered and composed. The clarity of her colors and the solidity of her expression bring Matisse and Miro to mind, when she has the whim.”
Through the years, she added various categories to her design portfolio including handbags, footwear and tops, as well as intimate apparel, swimwear and watches. The business had its share of arcs and tenors, but in 2005 it was reportedly a $500 million wholesale operation. According to the NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service, Gloria Vanderbilt was the number-one women’s brand in terms of unit sales in North America in 2016. Even though Iman was not a Gloria Vanderbilt jeans wearer in the Seventies, she opted in for the designer’s 2017 campaign, due to its message of inclusion.
The four-times-married Vanderbilt was also ahead of the women’s movement, telling WWD in 1967, “It’s a terrific time for women. They have more freedom. It’s because of the pill. Women have a choice of what they want to do and be.”
She also was unabashed about a certain sense of thrift at that time, saying, “I’m spending much, much less money on clothes this fall and having much more fun with fashion….I adore the dark look — it’s mysterious…and I love big hats and high collars — they make me feel protected.”
The designer described how much she valued her privacy in an interview with WWD. “I find living in a private house a delicious experience. I love the idea of having a key to your front door, going in to your own home, and not being bothered by doormen. There’s something psychological about having a house in New York…you have a whole different feeling.” she said.
Vanderbilt was not enslaved to New York City’s social scene, telling WWD, “Really one does what one wants to do. [Wyatt and I] don’t go to large parties because we just say no…and I have no guilt about it. I don’t believe in committees. I loathe charity balls and I don’t follow the luncheon circuit.”
Vanderbilt also could be the consummate hostess – albeit on her own terms. Following Truman Capote’s 1967 reading of “In Cold Blood” at Town Hall, she welcomed 50 to the Upper East Side home for a lobster Newburg, Krug Champagne-fueled dinner in the author’s honor. Years into their then friendship, Vanderbilt was confident Capote would be “marvelous.” And like any true friend, she planned the decor with her own stab at laughter – scarlet tablecloths were the décor of choice in the perfumed candlelit room.
Capote encouraged Vanderbilt’s artistic and playwriting pursuits. After reading her play “Cinamee,” Capote suggested she pen another, telling her in a 1959 letter, “You have real talent; and just as important, great discipline.”
Friendly as she was with Capote, Vanderbilt was not among what he called his “swans” – an inner circle of well-heeled women consisting of Babe Paley, Slim Keith, Lee Radziwill, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness and Marella Agnelli.
Even later in life, she was stirring up discussion with the publication of her prurient book “Obsession: An Erotic Tale.” Hosting a book party in her honor, Diane von Furstenberg said, “I was actually floored. It truly reminded me of when I was a little girl and I read the ‘Story of O,’ which is a book that I adored. [‘Obsession’] is not a book for guys. It’s very much of a woman’s fantasy, but it’s brilliant.”
Von Furstenberg said Monday, “Gloria was the most youthful and most glamorous woman I ever met. She lived the century as a public person, managed to always be relevant and her love for beauty and life was unique. She went through tragedies, but always kept going.”
Three years ago the HBO documentary “Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper,” explored their fractured family history. Filmmaker Liz Garbus said at that time, “When I first met her and walked into her studio, I thought, ‘Ah, this is how you want to tell this story. You want to use the artwork as a flashlight kind of into her past history,’” Garbus said. “As a businesswoman, she was incredibly successful. Look, she wasn’t bred as a Vanderbilt young woman to be a career woman. But she did have some strong female influences, her aunt Gertrude Whitney being one of them. Gloria found a path forward and clearly work is a big part of her identity and what sustains her.”
Sheila Nevins, former president of HBO Documentary Films who now heads MTV Documentary Films, described working with Vanderbilt on that documentary. “She was magic, gracious and charming always,” said Nevins. “We had tea together many times. She was hot, she was beautiful, she was timeless. I will miss her presence. Yet I feel her still, her disruptive silence.”
In 2017, Vanderbilt read two stories about adultery and the death of a child for the audiobook of Nevins’ novel, “You Don’t Look Your Age and Other Fairy Tales.”
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