RIP: Nan Kempner

"My dear," she said in an interview in Vanity Fair earlier this year: "Wait till
you discover the wheelchair. You go to the front of every single line. They push
you right through… I tell you, it's First Class Plus."

Nan Kempner
(Filed: 06/07/2005)

Nan Kempner, the New York society hostess who has died aged 74,
inspired the novelist Tom Wolfe to coin the term "social X-ray" when describing
the skeletal ladies-who-lunch on the Upper East Side in Bonfire of the Vanities;
addicted to haute couture, she entertained on a grand scale, whilst fitting in
regular trips to London, Paris, Gstaadt, Venice and the Caribbean for fashion
shows, parties, skiing and sun-bathing.

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