the register
An exhibition of socialite Nan Kempner's clothes, accessories, and jewels opens tomorrow at the Met's Costume Institute and runs through March of 2007. She's pictured above looking a leetle skeletal and overtanned, with Bill Blass. I've never really understood the socialite thing, though I can kind of understand the appeal of being a lady who lunches. People photograph you and give you clothes, for being rich and going to parties? And if you dabble in designing a label or running a charity on the side, you get praised for your amazing multitasking abilities? These people should take a look at my life or the lives of any of my kick-ass female friends. Where's our column?
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Now, with magazines like US Weekly and shows like Entertainment Tonight, celebrity gossip has become ubiquitous. It sort of makes people long for the glamorous days of celebrity, the pre-Paris Hilton, pre-K-Fed, pre-upskirt photo and pre-Photoshop days. And that may be what the exhibit is about. Back then, Audrey Hepburn could do no wrong. Nowadays, she'd probably get ripped a new one, upskirt shots and all.
If you're really interested (you're probably not), you should read Self-Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890-1940 by Charles Leonard Ponce de Leon. It's quite interesting.