Zelda Kaplan RIP: fashionista dies with style at NY Fashion Week
ZELDA Kaplan, died whilst sat in the front row of Joanna Mastroianni’s New York catwalk show. She was 95.
Says Ruth Finley, publisher of The Fashion Calendar, in the New York Times:
“She flopped over in my lap. The show was just starting. I thought she fainted.”
Such is the power of the fashion. (Next year everyone will be doing it.)
Says designer Richie Rich in the New York Post:
“Passing away in the front row was how it was meant to be. Zelda loves fashion, so she died for fashion. She would have wanted to go out in style. Zelda always said, ‘Live, live, live and have fun’.”
Steve Kurutz’s piece about Kaplan, ran in the New York Times in 2003:
Several evenings a week she leaves her rent-controlled apartment on West 57th Street wearing her trademark ensemble — matching African-print dress, handbag and shoes, and a tall hat that rests atop her head like a cloth beehive — and bounces from one affair to the next, rarely returning home before dawn.
But Ms. Kaplan also does something surprising for most night creatures, or, for that matter, octogenarians. Periodically, she exits the party circuit to travel, particularly to Africa, where for the past three decades she has tromped through remote villages speaking to tribes about women’s rights…
While Ms. Kaplan meets new people constantly, she has not dated in quite some time and, free from the constrictions of marriage, has no plans to return. ”Two young men did recently ask if they could make love to me,” she said. ‘But what do I want with a 36-year-old?”’
It was twice married Zelda who told The Village Voice in 2006:
“It’s so important that girls not defer to the penis. I hope to let every girl know that she is somebody.”
As she said:
“’I want to be an example for young people so they aren’t afraid of growing old and a lesson to old people that you can be productive. You don’t have to sit around and wait for death.’’
And the show – of course – went on…
Posted: 16th, February 2012 | In: The Consumer Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
