Dress

Although her loyalty to Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, and Oscar de la Renta is revealed by their quantitative representation in Mrs. Kempner's collection, she was enthralled by the work of Mme Grès in the 1960s and 1970s. She noted in the New York Times for October 10, 1979, "I have Grès dresses going back twenty years. I use them like a library." Mrs. Kempner's small number of pieces, at least relative to her other favored designers, still comprise a survey of Mme Grès's best efforts. More recently Mrs. Kempner purchased Jean Paul Gaultier's homage to the classic, hand-pleated Mme Grès gown. Gaultier's version, reflective of the times, is deliberately louche, informed as much by the decade of deconstructionists as the heyday of Mme Grès. Gaultier's careful draping is invested with a sense of haphazard spontaneity in the loose ends and unexpected knot that would have been an anathema to his predecessor's precisely controlled designs.