Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” is here

Think Hermès, Mainboche, double strand pearl necklaces and matching earrings, spicy affairs and shocking scandals: “Feud: Capote vs The Swans” is here. Fashion Tv does not get better this.

This year marks that is its 100 years since Truman Capote, American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor was born. A troubled kid from a broken home who grew up to become one of the most celebrated writers of his time penning literary classics like the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and the true crime-novel “In Cold Blood” (1966).

A young Truman Capote photographed in 1948. His novels made him skyrocket to fame in the sixties. Photo: CC

Many of his works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas, and now the man himself is the leading man in Ryan Murphy’s new limited series “Feud: Capote vs The Swans”.

The series, starring people like Naomi Watts and Chloë Sevigny takes us into the once glitzy world of New York high society, and examines the friendships between the American novelist and a group of rich socialites and tastemakers in New York – and the massive fall-out that ensued their gossipy encounters.

The rift between Capote and his “swans” came about after a fictionalized excerpt from a novel Capote was working on, spilling the women’s secrets, was published in Esquire magazine in 1975. The cast is impressive: The Swans are played by Diane Lane as Nancy “Slim” Keith, Calista Flockhart as Lee Radziwill, Naomi Watts as Barbara “Babe” Paley and Chloë Sevigny as C.Z.Guest – all of them decked out in the great fashion labels of the time – think Verdura, Hermès, Mainboche.

One can only imagine the costume budget Lou Eyrich – known for her work in several of the “American Horror Story”-series – must have had. Tom Hollander portrays Capote, whose flamboyant style was conservative but with attention to detail. 

Capote was the brain behind the now legendary Black and White Ball, which took place in The Plaza Hotel, New York in 1966.

His first novel “Other Voices, Other Rooms” had elevated him to literary cult status – and in 1966 he had the idea he wanted to celebrate his success with a party – the sort of do that makes celebrities fight over invites. So he organized a huge, spectacular gathering in New York as a present to himself. In order to not appear too self-centered he invited the top celebs of the day as “guest of honour”. Among those who were exclusively invited were the author’s “swans”, as well as Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow, Andy Warhol, Babe Paley, Slim Keith, Lee Radziwill, Marella Agneli and Penelope Tree, who, in a revealing design from Paraphernalia, was discovered by Vogue that night. Of course it got massive media coverage and Gloria Steinem write in Vogue magazine: “The effect was like some blend of Hollywood, the Court of Louis XIV, a medieval durbar, and pure Manhattan.” (Faksimile below)

and when he got the idea of exposing the circles in which he mingled – he thought it would become his key work – and had boasted to People magazine it would do to America what Proust once did to France. So, when  Esquire published the excerpt “La Côte Basque” in 1965, it hit like a bomb – but not the way Capote had envisioned.

He told People magazine that he was constructing his book like a gun: “There’s the handle, the trigger, the barrel, and, finally, the bullet. And when that bullet is fired from the gun, it’s going to come out with a speed and power like you’ve never seen—wham!” But, according to the magazine Vanity Fair he had unwittingly turned the gun on himself. According to Vanity Fair – exposing the secrets of Manhattan’s rich and powerful was nothing short of social suicide.

Capote left, with movie director Richard Brooks in 1968, Photo: CC

Such is the fashion feast in the TV-series that The New York Times have predicted it could herald an end to the sweatpants era, or alternately give coordinated dressing a very bad name. Think perfect coifs, matching tweed sets, double strands pearls and matching earrings, square-shouldered jackets, luxurious silk shirts and high-waisted pants, mandarin-collared evening wear and extraordinary jewels.