The four society paragons—Babe Paley, Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, and Lee Radziwill—celebrated in the FX series Feud: Capote vs. the Swans had much more in common than their tricky friendships with Truman Capote. Each one of them, in their day, dominated the International Best-Dressed List, an honor so rarefied that, like an invitation to Capote’s 1966 Black and White Ball (the subject of Episode Three), no amount of money, publicity, social status, or proximity to “the Tiny Terror” himself could alone secure it.
Paley alighted on the List first, in 1941, the second year of its existence, in second place, while she was still Mrs. Stanley Mortimer, a 26-year-old Vogue editor and navy pilot’s wife. The most universally admired of the foursome, Paley routinely received letters from strangers begging for her hand-me-downs. When she allowed her brunette hair to fade to gray, tied a silk scarf around the handle of her purse, or left a coat’s top button open, thousands duplicated the move. Ambivalent about this unsought attention, Paley informed I.B.D.L. founder (and fellow Black and White Ball attendee) Eleanor Lambert that she feared her daughter, Amanda Burden (likewise a guest and I.B.D.L. honoree), would mistake dressing well for a talent. Lambert replied to her, “Not to worry. It is a talent.”
