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Stepping out at Rough Point
01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, April 12, 2007
NEWPORT In private, she favored comfortable clothes and simple no-nonsense shoes. Sometimes she even surprised her summer guests by wandering around the house barefoot. But when she wanted to step out — when one of her Hollywood friends threw a star-studded party or when Pop artist Andy Warhol called with a reservation at Studio 54 — Doris Duke certainly knew how to make a fashion statement.
Now Duke’s dressing habits are the focus of a new exhibit at Rough Point, the rambling Bellevue Avenue mansion where Duke spent much of her later life (she died in 1993) and which has since become a popular Gilded Age house museum. Titled “The Look! Doris Duke’s Day and Evening Wear,” the show features nearly 30 outfits, ranging from casual pantsuits to full-length evening gowns. The show, which opens today, also boasts a closet’s worth of brand-name designers, including Chanel, Halston, Yves St. Laurent and Cristobal Balenciaga.
“By today’s standards, Doris Duke wasn’t a hard-core fashion plate,” says Rough Point curator Michelle K. Musto. “She didn’t jet off to Paris for Fashion Week or cultivate specific designers. But she did have a great sense of style and a great eye for clothes. And of course, she had the money to buy whatever she wanted.”
Some fashion fans may recall that an earlier Rough Point exhibit, “From Jet Set to Jeans: The Wardrobe of Doris Duke,” also explored Duke’s sartorial style. But Musto says “The Look!” differs from that 2005 show in several respects. For one thing, it focuses exclusively on the “best of the best” — the couture gowns and designer-label ready-to-wear outfits that represent the cream of Duke’s clothing collection.
“This is the top of the line,” she says. “You won’t find any jeans in this show.”
Besides showing off some to-die-for clothes, “The Look!” also has a more serious purpose: to illustrate how ideas about fashion and “being fashionable” have changed over the years.
“The earliest pieces in the show date from the 1930s and ’40s, when there were very strict rules governing the way women should — and shouldn’t — dress in public,” Musto says. “You wore a different outfit to a morning meeting than you did to an afternoon social event. And a dress that might be appropriate for a cocktail party at 6 p.m. was not considered appropriate for a formal dinner party held a couple of hours later.”
As a result, well-to-do women like Duke might change their clothes four or five times a day, depending on their social schedules. “That would have totally worn me out,” Musto says.
By the mid-1960s, women’s dress codes, like many other aspects of American life, had loosened considerably. Deciding what to wear became more a matter of personal expression — of “being yourself” — than social expectations. Meanwhile, new clothing styles, including cocktail dresses that doubled as evening gowns and pantsuits that managed to look both dressy and casual, provided more flexibility.
“You can really see the change in some of the later outfits,” Musto says. “Rather than something you might wear for only a few hours, the fashions from the 1960s and ’70s tend to be much more versatile. The pantsuits, in particular, were outfits that you could easily wear all day and even into the night.”
With their fitted tops and leg-covering trousers, pantsuits were also a boon to older women who enjoyed going out, but for whom more revealing clothes were no longer an option. That made them a perfect fit for Duke, a tall, willowy blonde who maintained a busy social schedule well into her 60s.
“She definitely liked her pantsuits,” Musto says.
In all, “The Look!” features 26 outfits (27 if you count a matching cream-colored suit and coat ensemble from the 1959 Christian Dior collection designed by Yves St. Laurent). For space reasons, the exhibit spans two separate galleries. The first, located on Rough Point’s second floor, covers the 1930s through the 1960s. The second, located in Rough Point’s basement, contains fashions from the 1970s and ’80s.
Both galleries offer a mix of styles, ranging from day clothes to eveningwear and from high-end couture to less expensive ready-to-wear pieces. (Duke, it seems, was an equal opportunity shopper, as eager to browse the aisles at Marshall Field as she was to shop at fashion temples such as Bergdorf Goodman.)
Early pieces such as a silver-trimmed velvet suit by Hattie Carnegie and a camel-colored overcoat by Jay Thorpe, both purchased in the late 1930s, are relatively conservative. Yet by the early 1950s, Duke’s style sense clearly had become more adventurous. In place of American designers such as Thorpe and Carnegie, the 1950s found Duke buying clothes from top-flight Paris designers such as Balenciaga, Yves St. Laurent and Madame Grès. Among the highlights: a stunning wasp-waisted cocktail dress from Christian Dior’s 1952 collection and an equally spectacular black-lace cocktail dress from Balenciaga’s Spanish-made “Eisa” line.
The French fashion connection continued well into the 1960s, with clothes by André Courrèges (an early tailored-wool pantsuit, circa 1968), Madame Grès (a wonderfully nubby wool pullover from the early 1960s ) and Pierre Cardin (a Barbarella-worthy overcoat made from silver vinyl).
Musto says the Cardin coat has become a staff favorite. “We keep trying to picture Doris Duke in a silver vinyl overcoat with white go-go boots,” she says. “It’s kind of amazing.”
Though not as wide-ranging as the first gallery, the second gallery gets off to a rousing start with a full-length feather-trimmed cape by American designer Richard Tam. The cape, which dates from the late 1970s, is paired with another of Duke’s purchases from the 1970s: a flashing disco ball.
“It shows you that Duke wasn’t just stuck in one era,” Musto says. “Throughout her life, she kept up with current trends and events, including changes in fashion, design and the arts.”
Other highlights include a striking satin evening dress by French designer Hubert de Givenchy, a Chanel “sailor suit” and a flamboyant powder-blue pantsuit by Halston.
In addition to the clothes, both galleries feature an array of shoes, bags and other accessories. Musto and the rest of the show’s organizers have also made good use of Rough Point’s collection of Duke’s family photographs. Perhaps the most surprising is a shot of a smartly dressed Duke sharing an intimate moment with Andy Warhol at Studio 54, the legendary New York City disco. Who knew?
As it happens, Rough Point isn’t the only Newport mansion having a fashion moment this year.
Rough Point’s Bellevue Avenue neighbor, Rosecliff, is also hosting a fashion exhibit, this one exploring the impact of Newport on American fashions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Titled “In Vogue: Newport and the American Fashion Press, 1880-1920” and organized by the Preservation Society of Newport County, the show features 22 Gilded Age outfits, ranging from vintage swimsuits and tennis togs to a 1910 evening gown designed by the first of the great French fashion houses: Maison Worth.
No doubt a fashion sophisticate like Doris Duke would approve.
“The Look! Doris Duke’s Day and Evening Wear” runs through Nov. 10 at Rough Point, 680 Bellevue Ave., Newport. Hours: through May 12, Thursday-Saturday, 9:45-1:45; after May 12, Tuesday-Saturday, 9:45-3:45. Admission, adults $25, children under 12 free. (Note: admission includes Rough Point house tour.) Contact: (401) 847-8344 or visit www.newport
restoration.com. “In Vogue: Newport and the American Fashion Press, 1880-1920” runs through Nov. 16 at Rosecliff, 548 Bellevue Ave., Newport. Hours: daily, 10-5 Admission: adults $11, ages 6-17, $4, under 6 free. (Note: includes tour of Rosecliff.) Contact: (401) 847-1000 or visit www.newportmansions.org.
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