The art of dressing up is on full display in “The International Best-Dressed List: The Official Story.”
Due out Oct. 22, the photo-filled tome recaps the “best-dressed” through the decades, as deemed so by the Eleanor Lambert-created IBDL. Amy Fine Collins, who penned the new book, knew the fashion publicist as a professional, a neighbor and an IBDL committee member. Established in 1940, the IBDL was minted by Lambert as “a permanent record of excellence.” Anticipating that the war would end the Paris Dressmakers’ Best-Dressed Women Poll, after most couture houses suspended operations after the Nazis took Paris, Lambert once explained how she decided to “carry the torch” for Paris “until they could pick it up again.”
Lambert, who died in 2003, bequeathed the list to Collins, Graydon Carter, Reinaldo Herrera and Aimee Bell — three of whom are ensconced in the IBDL Hall of Fame. That also ensured full access to Lambert’s IBD archives, which Collins compared to “time traveling really from the 1930s.” Early on every winner would write “a very polite and grateful thank you note or telegram” to Lambert, including Audrey Hepburn from the set of “The Sun Also Rises” in Mexico. Benazir Bhutto also sent a note
Due out Oct. 22, the photo-filled tome recaps the “best-dressed” through the decades, as deemed so by the Eleanor Lambert-created IBDL. Amy Fine Collins, who penned the new book, knew the fashion publicist as a professional, a neighbor and an IBDL committee member. Established in 1940, the IBDL was minted by Lambert as “a permanent record of excellence.” Anticipating that the war would end the Paris Dressmakers’ Best-Dressed Women Poll, after most couture houses suspended operations after the Nazis took Paris, Lambert once explained how she decided to “carry the torch” for Paris “until they could pick it up again.”
Lambert, who died in 2003, bequeathed the list to Collins, Graydon Carter, Reinaldo Herrera and Aimee Bell — three of whom are ensconced in the IBDL Hall of Fame. That also ensured full access to Lambert’s IBD archives, which Collins compared to “time traveling really from the 1930s.” Early on every winner would write “a very polite and grateful thank you note or telegram” to Lambert, including Audrey Hepburn from the set of “The Sun Also Rises” in Mexico. Benazir Bhutto also sent a note