“Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” Brings Back High-Society Fashion

Ryan Murphy’s new restricted sequence, “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” takes viewers right into a defunct world, set within the rooms as soon as inhabited by the fastidiously coifed fixtures of Manhattan’s excessive society.

The present examines the rift between the author Truman Capote and his mates — a pack of socialites whom he referred to as his “Swans” — after a fictionalized excerpt from his unfinished novel spilling their secrets and techniques was revealed in Esquire journal in 1975.

The Swans, every wearing her personal polished, throwback type, are performed by an impressive cast: Diane Lane as Nancy “Slim” Keith, Calista Flockhart as Lee Radziwill, Naomi Watts as Barbara “Babe” Paley and Chloë Sevigny as C.Z. Guest.

Forward of the discharge of the primary two episodes, members of the Types desk gathered to debate the designers highlighted within the sequence and the way the present made them nostalgic, but additionally hopeful, for the return of a extra intentional means of dressing.

VANESSA FRIEDMAN This present is such a trend feast (Verdura! Hermès! Mainbocher!) that it’s exhausting to know the place to start out. However I do wonder if having this instance of utmost wardrobing dangled so alluringly on all our small screens will herald an finish to the sweatpants period, or as a substitute — as a result of it reveals how trend might be an armature overlaying corrosion and decay — give coordinated dressing a nasty title.

JESSICA TESTA I don’t anticipate this present will begin a frenzy for matching tweed units and excellent coifs (though, boy, I’d like to be mistaken). One factor I do suppose will resonate with a contemporary viewers is the perspective of discernment that the Swans have.

One of many nice traces of the primary episode was Truman Capote saying “child’s breath is vomitous.” Moments later, Babe Paley criticizes a girl’s fragrance by saying it’s “an excessive amount of sandalwood for a girl together with her face.”

I like these typically banal broad pronouncements — this random factor is sweet, this random factor will not be good — that outlined this group of society girls. It jogged my memory of how, round New Yr’s, so many “out and in” lists went viral.

FRIEDMAN What strikes me is much less anyone particular merchandise — although a few of them are fabulous — than the entire concept that it doesn’t matter what, one must put oneself collectively from earrings to pearls to decorate to jacket to footwear to bag to furs. That form of care with outfits is sort of a misplaced artwork. They even have Ann Woodward donning her fur coat to overdose on drugs. (Like all of the fur within the present, it’s faux.)

GUY TREBAY One factor I’d like to see come out of this can be a resurfacing and reappraisal of Mainbocher.

FRIEDMAN Sure — and Mila Schön, whose work performs a task right here.

TREBAY Assume for a minute about silhouettes, how little is extraneous to form and description. All the pieces is near the physique, pared down and but useful.

FRIEDMAN I used to be struck by how every character has such particular type. C.Z. Visitor together with her tweeds, turtlenecks and shirt attire. Slim Keith together with her square-shouldered jackets, silk shirts and high-waisted pants. Babe together with her neat little jackets and matching attire, her mandarin-collared night put on and extraordinary jewels. The costume designer, Lou Eyrich, will need to have had a jaw-dropping funds.

TESTA Of all these characters, I stay up for seeing extra of Slim Keith’s outfits.

TREBAY Excessive-society branding. Slim had extra of a Hollywood look, all the time barely out of step with trend.

FRIEDMAN I’m additionally trying ahead to seeing extra of Lee Radziwill, one other well-known tastemaker, within the subsequent episodes.

TESTA There’s one explicit Babe Paley outfit that I assumed was a stroke of costuming genius: She’s simply been double-crossed by Capote, and she or he’s sporting a double strand of pearls round her neck, and there are double navy traces trimming her matching jacket and high.

FRIEDMAN Capote has virtually as many outfits as his Swans.

TREBAY In early pictures Capote was so odd and fey, within the dictionary sense of that phrase. He dressed within the method of a homosexual man of his era, conservatively and but with sufficient concern for the main points — those who wanted to know, knew. I don’t significantly see that individual within the characterization of Tom Hollander.

FRIEDMAN One remaining factor that me: All of the present’s stars bought gussied up in black-and-white robes for the premiere as if to honor the ladies they portrayed. So in a method not less than, it’s already having an affect.

TREBAY I’d be delighted to see a few of that restraint return. And, to a considerable extent, it has been on the runways.

The idea is that with out stunt dressing, it’s unattainable to wow folks within the Instagram period. However folks have been astonished when these girls appeared in public, whether or not at La Côte Basque or the Met Ball.

TESTA And now the Met Ball is principally a contest of who’s, as we frequently say on Types, doing essentially the most.

FRIEDMAN Which brings us to Capote’s well-known Black and White Ball, and the following episode. Can’t wait to see what they put on.

Vanessa Friedman, Jessica Testa, Man Trebay and Katie Van Syckle contributed reporting.