“Hats, gloves, and effete homosexuals” is the name of one episode in Feud: Capote vs. the Swans. Fashion designer Kate Sylvester unpacks them all.
Over the past 30 years, fashion designer Kate Sylvester has paved the way for New Zealand-made fashion with a conceptual point of view.
An avid
Some constants are threaded throughout that archive — a love of mid-century shapes and post-war couture masters continue to find some shape or form among her collections. From Lee Miller to Mary Quant, what makes Kate Sylvester’s inspirations flourish is a deep emotional connection to the significance of women designing clothes for other women.
It made sense, then, to tap Kate’s shoulder to ask her to review the second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud anthology, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (showing on Neon in New Zealand), placing a spotlight on the elite set of women who ruled high society in 1960s and 1970s New York.
Based on Laurence Leamer’s bestselling book, Capote’s Women: A True Love Story of Love, Betrayal and a Swan Song for an Era, the eight-episode season divulges the drama and fallout between acclaimed writer Truman Capote (portrayed in the series by Tom Hollander) and the ladies who lunch set, including Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart), C.Z. Guest (Chloe Sevigny), Nancy “Slim” Keith (Diane Lane) and Babe Paley (Naomi Watts). Costume designer and producer Lou Eyrich’s attention to each character’s style plays an important supporting act in the story.
“It feels like the series was made for me,” says Kate, who gives us her expert analysis of the series below.
The icons
Kate Sylvester: As an avid fashion historian, I have studied and obsessed over the Swans, a gang of supremely elegant couture-clad socialites who owned the best-dressed lists of the 1960s and 1970s.
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Advertise with NZME.As an avid reader, I’ve devoured everything written by author Truman Capote. It was he who coined the name Swans for his socialite buddies and then devastatingly betrayed them in his book Answered Prayers. An initial, scandalous chapter, La Cote Basque, was released in 1965. It destroyed the friendship, and effectively the lives of several of the protagonists, including Capote.
The series is a fascinating but often uncomfortable watch. On one hand, I learned that my style icons and literary icons weren’t necessarily very nice people, but it’s also a fabulous appreciation course in contemporary dress.
We are so relaxed and comfortable in 2024! And I am so thankful that we are.
The costumes
The overall art direction and costuming are superb.
Taken individually, there are some killer outfits. Babe Paley in her fur collar coat, a beautiful pearl-coloured cheongsam or her Chanel ensembles.
The gang’s glorious Thanksgiving gowns are all fantastic. But there is a strictness, a stiffness, a tightness about the fit of the clothes. When this is combined with the beehive helmet hair, the cluttered, claustrophobic interiors (complete with permanent cigarette smoke haze), the cattiness and paranoia of the conversations, it all conjures up a suffocating world of sad, stilted lives.
The Swans truly were serene on the surface but paddling furiously below water to keep afloat, as Truman described.
The outfits that have best stood the test of time are C.Z. Guest’s skinny ribs and blazers.
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Advertise with NZME.These still feel totally contemporary — unlike her bizarre platinum helmet hair! It’s mesmerising to watch, it moves in its own completely stiff, random way as if not quite connected to her head. Whereas Babe’s helmet never moves at all unless being prodded or stroked by her eternally agitated hands.
A key moment for me is a scene where three of the Swans are lined up gossiping about Truman’s latest treachery. The camera pulls back to reveal they are bitching away in front-row position at a show often cited as one of the greatest of all time, Yves Saint Laurent’s 1976 Ballet Russe couture collection.
At a time when couture was seen as a stuffy, dated dinosaur (a la Babe), St Laurent presented a riot of fantasy, opulence and jewel colours that is still thrilling today. With this one show, he revitalised couture.
This scene is a reminder that these very cloistered, close-minded women were actually participants on the global stage. Lee Radziwill is the perfect example, hanging out with the great politicians of the era through her sister Jackie Kennedy.
It was because they existed in such a rarefied but high-profile world that they were the subjects of such public fascination, and why Truman’s expose of their tawdry private lives created such a huge sensation.
This is still the Faustian contract people sign today when they become celebrities. Where is the line between public and private?
We may not have resolved our obsessive fascination with celebrities’ private lives in 2024 but at least we’ve learned how to dress with ease. We’ve relaxed the fit of our clothes and when we want to wear something fitted and contained, we can revel in the comfort of lycra — we can breathe and sprawl and stride through our lives.
Get the look
We ask Kate to offer up three key items from her new collection inspired by the wardrobe of the Swans.
One of the muses for my current winter ‘24 collection Gloria Gloria is Gloria Vanderbilt. She was a buddy of Truman’s and actually features prominently (but not salaciously) in Truman’s book, Answered Prayers.
She is not considered one of the hallowed inner circle of Swans and I believe it’s because she was too human and too active. She was goofy, funny and friendly. She painted and crafted and created the incredibly successful line of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans.
But, like the Swans, she was a beautiful clothes horse and we referenced many of her Swan-like outfits in our collection, updated of course to fit our contemporary lives.
A mid-length dress
If you want a contemporary update on a Cote Basque luncheon dress, try our Cheri dress.
A preppy blazer
For a look inspired by C.Z. Guest’s blazer and skinny rib combination, try our Anderson blazer and Viva skinny rib top.
A chic coat
For the most perfect Babe-inspired coat, try our Quincy coat in coral.
Feud: Capote vs. the Swans is available to watch in New Zealand on Neon.
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A round of applause for the costume department — we see you.
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