“Pass the bottle Liz, it’s been a long day”
In which best
friends become
rivals, life deals
its harsh
blows, friendship
triumphs,
and Princess
Diana dances
at the Met.
Liz Tilberis, who went on to become the editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, was a very, very dear friend of mine. For nineteen years or so, throughout the beginning of our careers, we spent most days in each other’s company. She was like a sister to me. When we both lived in London and worked on British Vogue, we would have dinner together two or three times a week. She was always relaxing to be with and a good, sympathetic listener. I treasured this immensely because, being reserved, I rarely feel comfortable revealing my innermost thoughts to anyone. But I always felt comfortable with Liz.
If you saw us walking down the street together, you might have found us an incongruous pair, me in my attenuated, sophisticated version of vintage and she much shorter and chunkier, with tomboyish hair and haphazard outfits. What united us entirely, though, was our love of clothes. Although I was always considered the cold, unfriendly, and unemotional one, while she was much more open and warm, beneath it all we complemented each other. We were as cozy together as an old pair of shoes.
In 1967, just before I joined Vogue, Liz won the British Vogue talent contest for fashion writing. She was still at art school in Leicester, so she interned for a few weeks in the fashion room, where she occasionally assisted me. She then returned to college, but always with the prospect of a future at Vogue. Having become absolutely hooked on magazine life, she returned to us full-time when she graduated.
Liz was so much fun to work with, one of those jolly English girls who likes a joke. In the beginning she was far removed from my world and that of my cool group of peers, who were mostly wedded to the Parisian chic of Yves Saint Laurent and impeccable grooming. Liz had a much more down-to-earth personal style, with a passion for big sweaters, dungarees, tweeds, and bargains in army surplus. But soon her boundless energy and enthusiasm as an assistant endeared her to us all, and as the fashion department of British Vogue had a small staff at the time—perhaps ten people in all—we became really close.
She was devoted to making things happen. If you needed a giraffe for a shoot, Liz would find it. She didn’t mind lifting and carrying and was never too grand for any task. In her magazine photographs, she was far more adventurous than I. Whereas I was happiest working with a nice, well-made dress, Liz embraced the new-wave, avant-garde Japanese designers in the mid-eighties, with their formless black dresses and sweaters with holes. She loved their complicated, cerebral way of turning fashion on its head. Equally, she loved the wild and crazy creations of English labels such as Bodymap, whose clothes resembled madcap versions of dancers’ rehearsal wear, complete with odd-looking leg warmers and leotards. She was also an early champion of masculine/feminine looks such as those created by the British designers Paul Smith and Margaret Howell. In this way she fit in with the photographer Bruce Weber’s aesthetic, which was why they adored each other and loved working together. Liz also liked working with boys. Whenever I was on a job with Bruce, I consistently tried cutting down on the number of boys in the pictures. But Liz always encouraged him to book as many as he liked. Bruce was happy with Liz because with her, it was always a case of “more, more, more.”
Liz’s maiden name was Kelly. Her parents lived in Bath, where her father was a respected eye specialist, though the family originally came from Cheshire. Liz became famous for her whitish-gray hair, which I would guess went that way sometime in her twenties, although when we first met, she took to coloring it a dark plum, so I could never be sure. She wed Andrew Tilberis early in her career, while she was still working as an assistant. Andrew had been her teacher, a tutor at her art college, which shocked a few people when their relationship leaked out. Tutors, then as now, weren’t supposed to date their students, so they tried to keep their affair secret until Liz graduated. Andrew then spent his weekdays working at the college in Leeds and at weekends drove down to London to pick Liz up and then head off to Eastbourne, on the South Coast, where his parents owned a Greek restaurant. He had taken over their little enterprise in order to manage it more efficiently, with a view to selling it off so they could retire. Whenever I visited Tristan, whose boarding school was situated nearby, I took him there for lunch, a slap-up meal of moussaka, with baklava to follow.
For the longest time, Liz continued to assist the senior fashion editors. Any shoot she arranged was, in the beginning, overseen by Sheila Wetton or some other senior editor, who went along to ensure that she got it right. I, too, sometimes stopped by, although it is incredibly awkward to supervise or comment on a shoot under your friend’s watch. So I just whizzed in and out with a few bright words of encouragement.
Liz was eventually placed in charge of the section known as “More Dash Than Cash,” in which the photographs—many of them done by either Willie, my ex-husband; Barry Lategan; or occasionally Alex Chatelain—were normally spoiled by the crude price tags printed splashily across the pages featuring the bargain clothes. Liz dressed like that, though, and the section came to life because of it.
As her work matured and her style developed, she quickly became responsible for some major Vogue shoots and “lead” stories that appeared at the beginning of the fashion well and defined the theme of the month. Soon we were taking turns doing this very important section. Liz worked with the photographers Bruce Weber, Hans Feurer, Alex Chatelain, and Albert Watson, all pals who had supported her from the start.
When we attended the New York collections, Liz and I spent our free evenings hiding away in my room at the Algonquin, tucked up in bed together, ordering room service and watching TV. Or we’d discuss the collections and drink a lot of wine. Zack Carr from Calvin Klein would visit us, and Didier would drop in on his way home. Alex Chatelain would pass by or occasionally take us out, which was good news for our tiny British Vogue budget, because he would treat us to sushi. And boy, did we eat ourselves ill!
It was on one of these trips that Liz—who lived quite healthily in London and regularly played squash—decided we should begin jogging for exercise. “Every morning,” she enthused. “It’s really good for you.” She dragged me off to Paragon, the huge Manhattan sports emporium on Eighteenth and Broadway, to buy track pants and sneakers, which, although sporty, were not, in my opinion, at all attractive. I was made to run around first one block, then another and another, until we progressed as far as circling the entire four blocks surrounding our hotel before staggering back and collapsing into the arms of the bell captains, Mike and Tony.
Liz breaks out the champagne for Bruce and me in her room at the Paris Ritz. Photo: Bruce Weber, 1997
Despite all the travel, fashion work, and companionship, life always contained such a huge void for Liz because she so wanted to have children and seemed unable to conceive. She subjected herself to a series of in vitro treatments at a time when the method was in the early stages of development. The only other option was adoption, and after several in vitro attempts failed, she took it.
In order to adopt, the British agencies needed to know that you had withdrawn from an in vitro program and had enough money to raise a child properly. To assess your suitability, they interviewed you, your family, your friends. I was asked to vouch for Liz. Were they kidding? She would make a dream mother!
Soon afterward Liz and Andrew’s tiny adopted baby son, Robbie, arrived. It was a very emotional time for them because the birth mother hadn’t yet signed the papers, but finally, Liz and Andrew were awarded full custody. After this, our evenings were spent mostly at their house, marveling over Robbie and practicing changing his nappies (Liz was absolutely opposed to having a nanny). Not yet being nimble at this, we were forever stabbing ourselves with the large nappy pins.
A couple of years later, Liz and her family were down at her parents’ house in Bath when a terrible accident happened. Andrew was burning leaves in a garden bonfire, and there was a backdraft. He was wearing only a swimsuit, and his entire body caught fire. Liz threw a blanket over him to put out the flames, and he was rushed off to hospital. He remained in the burn unit for quite some time but was very lucky and eventually healed completely.
A few days after the accident, Liz was scheduled to go to the Paris couture for a story with Bruce Weber. She couldn’t go, of course, so I went instead. It was a chaotic shoot, full of crazy confusion and tons of boys because this was supposed to be a Liz production and she had okayed them all. A circus theme had been decided on, which included several trained poodles—found, oddly enough, thanks to Didier through the veterinarian’s practice where his mother worked—and this led to a memorable picture of the model Talisa Soto supporting a trained toy poodle on its hind legs in the palm of her hand. It was a male dog, and so, to ease the sensibilities of Vogue’s readers, he was retouched in his nether regions.
On the domestic front, while Liz and Andrew were busy acquiring Robbie, Tristan came home to live with me, and I restarted my own adoption saga (funny how our lives seemed to run along parallel lines). Tristan loved Liz, and she quickly became as much a part of his life as she was of mine. Every year, as a birthday treat, I took him to the celebrity restaurant San Lorenzo in Beauchamp Place, and Andrew and Liz (whose birthday was three days later) would join us. As soon as they were seated, Liz and Tristan would commence a furious food fight, during which she kept him fully fueled with enormous quantities of Champagne until he became quite drunk. Inevitably, he threw up when I got him home. Liz did everything to oppose discipline and authority, while Andrew did just the reverse.
They soon adopted a second little boy, Christopher. (You can imagine the chaos.) As soon as their dad was out of sight, Liz would allow them to bounce balls off the wall and skateboard or Rollerblade along the corridors of their home, all the while stuffing themselves with M&M’s and potato chips. At work, on the other hand, Liz was extremely disciplined and determined. And ambitious, as I was beginning to discover.
On our famous maiden trip to China, while I was in charge of the magazine’s main editorial photo shoot, Liz directed the Vogue “promotion”—the name given to pages where all the featured clothes and accessories are chosen by advertisers requiring the glossy sheen of editorial. We had a huge disagreement over which of us had the right to use the Great Wall as a location. Because we shared a bedroom throughout the trip, that only intensified the situation, and the argument ran on and on until finally I felt obliged to pull rank, but to no avail. Even though editorial pages should always have the pick of locations no matter who is paying an advertising fee, she won anyway, evidence of Liz’s tenacity over things she believed in.
Exiting some shows in Paris once, my friends the photographer Terence Donovan and the television personality Clive James, there to make a British fashion documentary, accosted me with questions. “I don’t do interviews,” I told them, briskly attempting to walk off. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” said Liz, hurrying over. I stayed to watch—and it was a revelation. My best friend was throwing out statistics and all kinds of complicated circulation numbers that I neither knew nor cared about. When the cameras stopped rolling, I congratulated her on knowing all those facts and figures about Vogue. I told her I had no idea she kept such things in her head. “I don’t,” Liz said with a smile. “I just made it all up.”
When I quit my job to go to Calvin Klein and moved to New York, I departed in the sure knowledge that Liz would be stepping into my shoes as fashion director of British Vogue. But in the end, Liz wasn’t happy. Each subsequent long-distance communication over the next few months seemed to confirm this. Not only did we miss each other, but Andrew was eager to move to the States, too, as he felt England was not a great place to raise their kids. So I set about finding Liz a job in New York, finally succeeding in securing her a position with Calvin as design director of his less expensive CK line. However, since that would place her somewhat below me in the hierarchy, and because she was concerned with guarding her position, I think she felt it would be something of a step backward.
“Are you sitting down?” Liz asked the next time we spoke, “because I have some good news and some bad news.” “And?” “Well, the good news is, I’m definitely coming to America. But,” she added, “the bad news is I’m not coming to Calvin, I’m coming to work for Ralph.” It appeared that Ralph Lauren was so keen to have his own English fashion editor, just like his rival Calvin, that he had offered Liz an equivalent position to mine as design director of collection at Ralph Lauren, Inc.
Whatever. It was fine. Not worth losing a friend over. Still, having pleaded Liz’s cause to Calvin only to discover she was running straight into the arms of the competition, I felt rather silly. But Calvin is like Anna. He never harbors a grudge. Without missing a beat, he filled the position with someone else.
As expected, and at roughly the same time, Anna was summoned to New York. It was common knowledge that she was meant to become editor in chief of American House & Garden—and thus would be positioned to take over the big job at American Vogue. With her imminent departure, the job of editor in chief of British Vogue fell vacant.
Later I learned that several emergency talks had been held at British Vogue about whether they could afford to lose Anna as well as both me and Liz in so short a period of time. Ultimately, the powers that be thought that the magazine would be considerably diminished. So, although her family’s belongings were already packed up in crates, when she was offered the job of editor, with Anna’s blessing, Liz made the decision to accept it and remain in London. (Anna, meanwhile, landed in New York and promptly renamed House & Garden HG, which some snippy media commentators delighted in calling “House & Garment,” because of Anna’s predilection for fashion content.) The rest is history.
The money Liz received in her new post was by no means spectacular. A certain snobbery colored British Vogue’s attitude with regard to somebody rising “through the ranks,” as opposed to someone glamorous and high-profile like Anna, who had been flown in from America. But if it rankled, Liz never allowed it to show. She took to her new position like a duck to water. Terence Donovan once said, “When you get a job like that, go in there and fire a few people so they know who you are.” Liz was far more strategic. She won Princess Diana over to her side by immediately commissioning Patrick Demarchelier to take her portrait for the cover—a major coup. Afterward, the princess and Liz became firm friends, often calling each other to chat about their children late into the night.
As well as doing the work and making the decisions, Liz loved being the public face of the magazine, as well as the socializing that came with it. When she became editor in chief, life changed: She went from spumante to real Champagne. And it was flowing; she and Andrew were now living the good life. From the beginning, Liz must have wanted the top job, even while encouraging me to go for it as well. I discovered she had put herself up for the position secretly, when Bea was leaving. I wish she had told me; I would have been fine with it.
I was very lonely in America without Liz. She, Andrew, and the kids would sometimes come to stay with me and Didier in the Hamptons. But we lacked the immediate closeness of a work situation and the camaraderie of being on the same team and living in the same country.
At this point, headhunters in New York contacted me about “a very, very important job in fashion.” I knew it had to be American Harper’s Bazaar because for years Hearst, the parent company, had been desperately attempting to revive that magazine’s illustrious past. When I spoke to them, I suggested that Liz would be the perfect person for the job. “Funnily enough,” they replied, “we are talking to her, too.”
Several years previously, I had been courted by Harper’s Bazaar when the fashion editor was Carrie Donovan, one of Manhattan’s most indomitable industry mavens. “You have to come in for an interview,” she occasionally boomed at me when we crossed paths in New York. Finally, I gave in and went. But on that day, the Manhattan traffic proved especially terrible. I couldn’t find a cab and arrived an hour late. They declined to see me. I was too late for the brass at Bazaar, who punctually and firmly closed my window of opportunity.
At the end of the day, Vogue for me carries far more weight and breadth. It’s so sturdy and strong, and with such a tradition and history behind it, I don’t doubt it will always survive. But the Bazaar that Liz produced afforded powerful competition. She didn’t want a “happening” magazine, she wanted a magazine that was classic and beautiful. She enticed Patrick Demarchelier and Peter Lindbergh away from American Vogue, and smartly found and nurtured new photographers like the British duo David Sims and Craig McDean, whom we used much later. Everyone in our business admired how glamorous and serenely beautiful Bazaar was becoming under Liz’s stewardship. The art director Fabien Baron, who had performed amazing transformations at Italian Vogue and Interview, had come on board at the start and helped her achieve much of this thanks to his spare, airy layouts and innovative use of type, which cleverly echoed the trailblazing 1950s work of the legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch.
Soon the rivalry between Vogue and Bazaar heated up to the point where, yes, I did feel the friendship between Liz and me become really strained. And there was a feeling of nervousness in 1992, when the photographer Steven Meisel was rumored to be off to the revitalized magazine. Would he jump ship or stay with Vogue? For months, the question of whether or not he would renew his contract with us developed into something of a magazine-world cliffhanger. Fortunately, he decided to stay. Meanwhile, Liz and I made a kind of pact never to talk about work, and this eased the situation, even if I did have to do a certain amount of diplomatic juggling.
December 1993 was the anniversary of Liz’s first year in New York. I, along with 250 others, arrived at her New York town house to attend a glittering celebration and Christmas party. By now she was basking in the unquestionable success of her sophisticated-looking Harper’s Bazaar, which, in the spring, had won two National Magazine Awards and been roundly acclaimed. The first families of New York social life were all there: Trumps, Lauders, Hearsts, Gutfreunds, and Kempners, as well as Seventh Avenue’s leading lights: Donna, Ralph, Calvin, and Isaac Mizrahi. It was a hugely glamorous evening. But as I was about to leave, Liz took me to one side and said, “They just discovered I have ovarian cancer. I’m going into hospital tomorrow for exploratory surgery.”
I was in shock. My friend had cancer?
Liz went through surgery a couple of days before Christmas, then endured the first of many rigorous courses of chemotherapy. After much research, she came to believe that the drugs she had taken when she was younger for her in vitro treatment might have contributed to her illness.
She was given at the most seven or eight years to live. Months passed. Every day she thought she was winning the battle for survival only to be told the cancer had returned and she needed to submit to another round of chemo. Her love of life was fierce, and she wouldn’t let go easily. No matter how weakened she was during these periods, she insisted on living as normal a life as possible. The Hearst Corporation, which owns Bazaar, was completely supportive and kept her totally involved. Every day she was in hospital, the magazine sent the “dummy” of the upcoming issue over to her for approval.
When the cancer was in remission, Liz would be up and about and, remarkably, traveling to the Paris collections. She shed a huge amount of weight, and Karl Lagerfeld was now dressing her in the finest Chanel couture. She looked incredibly chic. Didier trimmed her hair into a flattering elfin cut while it was growing back. All traces of her former mumsy bob completely disappeared. She also hosted the gala for the Costume Institute exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum and even managed to once again snag Princess Diana, this time as her star New York guest, a spectacular triumph that generated huge headlines around the world.
Most important, Liz believed in educating women about ovarian cancer and was very verbal about it. She involved herself in the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and held its first fund-raiser at her house in the Hamptons. She and Donna Karan inaugurated a huge summer charity event called Super Saturday, which became an established tradition.
Inevitably, Liz fell terribly ill again. In 1998 she bravely agreed to a bone marrow transplant, an extremely harrowing treatment. She couldn’t see anyone for weeks except her close family and me. When the doctors needed more bone marrow, I volunteered to give her some of mine, but for all the ways we were compatible, alas, in this one crucial way we were not.
Liz rallied for about a year but never really regained her strength, and in April 1999 she was back in hospital. I had just returned from a trip to India with Arthur Elgort when she died. I saw her the night before. Andrew had warned me that it wouldn’t be long. She was so very weak and had the look of death on her face. Early the next morning he called to say she had gone.
Half an hour later, Anna called. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t I know she was so close to death?” she asked, clearly distressed at the news. Then, with great compassion and respect, she asked if I would write an obituary for the next issue of Vogue. She knew how much it meant to me, and though I was in floods of tears, I managed to pull myself together enough to finish it at the office with the help of Charles Gandee, a Vogue features editor at the time. At home, I looked through all the snapshots of our good times together and, again in tears, added these to the page.
There was a small funeral with only Liz’s immediate family and housekeeper in attendance, along with Patrick Demarchelier, his wife, Mia, and Didier and me. Her two boys were so brave, it was heartbreaking. Later there was a huge memorial service at Lincoln Center. I remember Andrew’s speech for its eloquence and tenderness. Many others spoke as well, though I did not. Andrew asked me, but I just couldn’t have held myself together. Even six months after her death, I was too raw. I miss her still.
