Mica Ertegun’s Excessive Type Stands the Check of Time – WWD

Together with being a jetsetter, a New York insider and a working girl, who didn’t should be, Mica Ertegun had fashion in spades.

The 97-year-old Ertegun, whose late second husband Ahmet championed such musicians as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones as Atlantic Data’ cofounder, died Saturday at her residence in Southampton, N.Y. After escaping Communism in her postwar Romania, she settled on a Canadian farm earlier than marrying, venturing into inside design, establishing herself as a method arbiter, extremely regarded hostess and philanthropist. Her father, Gheorghe Banu, was a Romanian physician and politician. Her style sense stands the check time, primarily based on a number of of her interviews with WWD over time.

As an inside designer, Ertegun’s Manhattan city home embodied her eternal fashion – stylish, elegant and costly. Seven years into the MAC II enterprise that she began with fellow socialite Chessy Rayner, Ertegun mentioned buddies had been asking them to spruce up their flats. The founders had been on the lookout for one thing to do and so they thought it could be “very simple,” selecting their very own hours and dealing with buddies. Not fairly – “We made a number of errors. I really feel a little bit sorry for our first shoppers,” Ertegun instructed WWD in 1976.

Earlier than marrying her husband in 1961, the Romanian-born magnificence lived in sweaters and denims on the Canadian farm. “Not the ruffle kind,” her affinity for pants carried over into eveningwear and afternoons within the nation. Her de rigeuer daytime apparel was primarily the tried-and-true slimmish-skirt-and-sweater mixture and favored cashmere sweaters and textured stockings in the identical colour. Off-hours, she was the consummate entertainer, internet hosting intimate dinner events, or catching non-public screenings, theater openings and the occasional live performance.  

By her personal account, Ertegun stored only a few issues however her Madame Grès designs have been the exception, particularly togas. Her irreverent fashion may encompass black crepe pants with a parrot inexperienced toga and ropes of pearls wrapped round her wrists. In 1975, Ertegun clued WWD into the truth that she hated to put on one thing that everybody else had. A lot in order that she gave up her Cartier watch after seeing it on many others. The same situation performed out with a Louis Vuitton satchel that she had seen throughout Paris. Her replacements have been a person’s wristwatch and an Hermès shoulder bag with a little bit make-up bag tucked inside.

She noticed style as a sport that you just performed so long as it was enjoyable. Her intent was to look neat and her garments needed to be easy — seams straight and darts in the suitable locations. (To maintain all the pieces simply so, she relied on a dressmaker behind-the-scenes.) Ertegun instructed WWD in 1967, “In New York, everyone acknowledges the place your garments are from, even for those who keep away from the season’s standing symbols. The enjoyable of the sport is to attempt to hold them guessing for a little bit longer.”

To perform that within the late Nineteen Sixties, Ertegun mined finds from downtown shops, uptown thrift retailers after which some “assurance-insurance” items present in Paris, London, Rome and Zurich. Large coats, gathered skirts and something cutesy or reduce out have been off-limits. Braemar, Biba, Adolfo, Pierre Cardin, Madame Grès, Fernando Sanchez, Invoice Blass and Chester Weinberg have been extra her pace. The way in which she noticed issues, “One good coat a 12 months is the start of any wardrobe.”

A doer, not a primper, Ertegun’s make-up routine got here all the way down to cleaning soap, water, astringent and a little bit lip balm. One other time saver was restricted hairdressing, since she appreciated to swim usually. Striving to — however not at all times assembly — a aim of exercising 3 times per week, Ertegun stored her hair lengthy sufficient to drag again and wore headpieces at evening. Her fashion arbiters have been Francoise de la Renta, Annette Reed and Girl Keith — the classy sorts who learn, knew life and had no time for chit-chat. After noting how she was “fascinated” by Diana Vreeland, Ertegun mentioned, “She’s a doer, too…individuals who bore me, I simply don’t see.”

Progressive in her fashion, too, Ertegun appreciated versatility — as evidenced by the mink coat with a zip-off hemline, David Evans boots that mounted like stockings and pairing an Yves Saint Laurent “Smoking” with a nightdress styled to be a shirt that she had unearthed within the flea market at Marche Byron in Paris in 1967.

Along with her day job, Ertegun took a equally uncluttered method to adorning — simplicity, drama and non-matching colours. In one among her WWD interviews within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, she described her husband as “amused however approving” of the enterprise. “In any case, our husbands lent us the cash to begin the enterprise, or how else may we’ve got funded it.”

However Ertegun wasn’t precisely a beginner at inside design, having had a lifelong curiosity in adorning and a one-year stint on the New York Faculty of Design. However faculty days bored Ertegun. “Their style and mine are so completely completely different. They have been speaking avocado and gold. I hope American style has modified.”

The well-heeled Ertegun and Rayner racked up shoppers like Saks Fifth Avenue, the Carlyle Resort and Jerome Robbins. And Ertegun took that position severely, by being dressed and able to go by 8 each morning. With out query, the socialite didn’t want the cash, however she instructed WWD that she would hate to work and never earn cash. “It appears type of dilettante,” she mentioned. By way of skilled recommendation, she praised Billy Baldwin’s counsel of “by no means to make use of something or to rent anybody low-cost to get a very good worth for our buddies.”

Trend and residential design have been simply accents in a full and diversified life. As she as soon as defined to WWD, “Most of my buddies don’t take themselves that severely. They’re extra pure and so they wish to have enjoyable. In any case, if it’s not enjoyable, it’s not likely price it. Don’t you suppose?”