This fall, a rare collection of dresses goes on the block in Paris, all from the collection of the legendary style icon and muse Danielle Luquet Saint Germain. At 19, she was spotted by Yves Saint Laurent and immediately incorporated into his atelier as model and inspiration. “I realized that her body and gestures were typical of today’s woman,” YSL recalled. “She helped me eliminate any references and reminders that were out of fashion—the dust of haute couture.” Such iconic pieces as the women’s tuxedo jacket, the transparent blouse and the ready-to-wear safari coat were fueled by her taste. After a decade with the designer, she moved on to become artistic advisor at Christian Dior, and helped Claude Montana create his first collection. Among the 350 garments to be auctioned on October 14th by Gros & Delettrez at the Hotel Drouot will be pieces by Montana, Azzedine Alaïa, Paco Rabane, Thierry Mugler and Christian Lacroix. Of course, the stars of the show will mostly likely be the dozens of YSL creations she amassed over the years, including a black, transparent chiffon dress with ostrich feathers estimated to sell between 13,000 and 15,000 euros, and the famous Picasso gown with embroidery by François Lesage, estimated at 10,000 to 12,000 euros. For more information, visit www.gros-delettrez.com.

Photograph by Slim Aarons.

This month, Rizzoli releases a sumptuous tribute to the legendary social icon C.Z. Guest, who romped through the 20^th-century beau monde with unending vivacity and style. From her birth in 1920 into an upper-crust Boston family to her 1947 marriage to Winston Guest (a Churchill relation) to her years ping-ponging between swank parties and rustic gardens, she was the epitome of a life well lived. Now, C.Z. Guest: American Style Icon captures her in all her multifaceted glory: debutante, horsewoman, muse for the greats (painted by Rivera and Dali, photographed by Beaton and Penn), author (her gardening columns became a late-in-life passion) and, ultimately, venerable symbol of a disappearing civilization. Susanna Salk—known for her books including Weekend Retreats, Be Your Own Decorator and A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Style—has pulled together an album of incredible images by the likes of Slim Aarons, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Irving Penn, alongside written tributes from Oscar de la Renta, Diane von Furstenberg, Billy Norwich (who penned the introduction) and many others. Perhaps Truman Capote—who counted her among his “swans”—explained her allure best in an essay written for her 1976 book, First Garden. Reminiscing about the night they met, he wrote: “Her hair, parted in the middle and paler than Dom Pérignon, was but a shade darker than the dress she was wearing, a Mainbocher column of white crêpe de Chine. No jewelry, not much makeup; just blanc de blanc perfection….[Cecil] Beaton introduced me to her, a gesture acknowledged with ice-cream reserve. Who could have imagined that lurking inside this cool vanilla lady was a madcap, laughing tomboy?”

Here, Salk speaks with In Season about her illustrious subject. For more information, visit www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780847839711.

What sets C.Z. Guest apart from the other great 20^th-century icons such as Babe Paley and Jackie Kennedy?

She was surprisingly modern, no matter the era, and was game for adventure. She liked to hang out with a diverse group of people, be they Truman Capote, Joan Rivers or Diane von Furstenberg. She was in no way isolated within a gilded cage.

Does the world she championed still exist today, and if so, in what form?

She championed being your best, soldiering on despite steep challenges, and never making too much of a fuss, so absolutely.

What is your favorite C.Z. persona: hostess, horsewoman, designer, gardener, art subject, socialite, survivor, etc.?

I couldn’t pick. She was always completely herself. All those passions were active and present no matter where she was or what she was doing, so it’s impossible to separate one out.

Photograph by Clifford Coffin, 1950. 

Photograph by Michael Mundy. From C.Z. Guest: American Style Icon (Rizzoli).

How was she a leader in taste?

She took that pragmatic WASP style and showed how elegant and enduring it can be.

What are your favorite images of her in the book and why?

I love the one where she’s dancing with the Duke of Windsor in Palm Beach. There she definitely looks like the ‘cool vanilla lady’ Truman Capote described. Also the one of her lounging outside with her dog beside her in tennis whites. She so rarely stood still. You can almost feel that she’s eager to get back out to the court, or on to her roses.

What rarities will the reader encounter?

An entire chapter shot by her ‘garden husband,’ Elvin McDonald. He spent years photographing her casually and intimately, while she was working in her gardens and greenhouses. Most of the shots have never been seen before. 

What most affected you when compiling the book?

How unique she was. How we’ll never see the likes of her again. 

How do C.Z.’s passions reflect your own?

Tennis, flowers, dogs, fabulous dinner parties and a strong work ethic: What’s not to love and embrace?

Cover of C.Z. Guest: American Style Icon, published this month by Rizzoli.

Photograph by Bruce Weber.

Drawing by Cecil Beaton

First edition of “First Garden” by C.Z. Guest, 1976.

Mouse Museum, 1965-77. Wood and corrugated aluminum, plexiglas display cases with 385 objects, sound. Copyright Claes Oldenburg.

This month, New York’s Museum of Modern Art mounts a major retrospective tribute to the pop artist Claes Oldenburg. Known for his oversized replicas of everything from hamburgers to pay phones to typewriter erasers, the Swedish-born Oldenburg—much like his contemporaries Lichtenstein and Warhol—created a new way of looking at supposedly mundane and everyday objects. The fact that their gaze was turned onto commercial products and images rather than the flowers and landscapes of their forerunners added a completely modern, lightly cynical and breezily humorous affect to the work.

“Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store” showcases memorable pieces from the early 1960s, arguably the pinnacle of Pop. An immense BLT seems to deflate under its sandwich pick. A Pastry Case offers a panoply of plaster sweets, each outdoing the other in color and caloric guilt. A crushed 7-Up can could be one discarded on the corner outside the museum—if it weren’t 55 inches high. Augmenting this show will be displays of Oldenburg’s architectural structures Mouse Museum and Ray Gun Wing, both from the 1970s. Like many iconic works, these seminal pieces from Oldenburg only gain in power and impact when seen live. So go ahead, have it your way, and enjoy that special lemon-lime effervescent of one of the masters of Pop. Through August 5^th at the Museum of Modern Art. Visit www.moma.org for more information.

Floor Burger, 1962. Canvas filled with foam rubber and cardboard boxes, painted with acrylic paint. Copyright Claes Oldenburg.

Ray Gun Poster, 1961. Spray of wash on torn paper. Copyright Claes Oldenburg.

7-Up, 1961. Enamel on plaster-soaked cloth on wire. Copyright Claes Oldenburg.

Street Head III (Profile With Hat), 1960. Burlap and newspaper, painted with casein. Copyright Claes Oldenburg.

Braselette, 1961. Muslin, plaster, chicken wire and enamel. Copyright Claes Oldenburg.

Society’s rigid rules can often cause most of us, in the words of Norman Bates, “to go a little mad sometimes.” And in the surreally stark, hyper-glamorous world of photographer Miles Aldridge, his models seem to be on the verge of cracking under the pressure of perfection. These women are suffering from an exquisite emotional tension, whether dining at a fine restaurant, acting as the sexual object of a man, or merely performing the routine rituals of traditional housewifery.

Indeed, they often appear perfectly paralyzed in Aldridge’s baroque photographs, which have been published in such magazines as American and Italian Vogue, Numéro and The New Yorker. This month, Rizzoli releases I Only Want You to Love Me, a bountiful collection of these thrilling and frankly creepy works. As the title suggests, Aldridge’s characters seem suffused by more than a little desperation, a state illustrated by the photographer’s homages to classical Hollywood hysteria: The ghosts of Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford and Sharon Tate hang heavily over his heroines, while direct takes on The Stepford Wives and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? paint insanity with an ironic brush.

Aldridge both questions and celebrates his subjects’ allure, challenging the viewer and casting a dual meaning onto his work: Is his view idolizing or mocking, or both? And before they’re all dragged off to the Snake Pit, perhaps the ultimate setting for these otherworldly creatures is in a séance series, in which, luminous and ethereal, Aldridge’s women finally seem to have transcended the burdens of their earthbound existences

For more information, visit http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780847840366

Images copyright Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You to Love Me, Rizzoli New York, 2013.

All images copyright Christopher Makos and Paul Solberg.

www.Makostudio.com

From “Service” by Paul Solberg. On exhibition at Casa de Costa in New York. through April 18th.

 During Fleet Week of 2010—that springtime ritual when thousands of young military servicepeople descend upon New York City—photographer Paul Solberg documented hundreds of soldiers, sailors and airmen in a series of intimate, haunting portraits. Using vintage Polaroid film, he aimed for an effect tinged with both timelessness and nostalgia; unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the film began to deteriorate soon after the images were taken. Albeit damaged, some could be saved and scanned, with the unplanned “accident” of their creation adding an extra visual frisson to the experience. Now, New York’s Casa de Costa gallery is showing them in an exhibition called “Service,” running through April 18^th.

How did you decide to photograph young servicemen, and why did you choose vintage Polaroid film for the project?

The month of May came around and suddenly the city was full of people in uniform. Like most New Yorkers, I realized another year had flown by and it was Fleet Week again.

In 2009 Dotson Rader gave me the book Great Poets of World War I. It took me a while to open the pages, thinking there were more interesting subjects to read about. But I eventually opened the book and couldn’t put it down, drawn into these arresting poems from these kids on the front lines nearly 100 years ago.

‘Service’ was the most serendipitous of projects. I didn’t plan a strategy for it; rather, I followed the story as it unfolded. In 2010 I decided I was going to at least try to photograph the servicemen and -women during Fleet Week. A camera shop gave me some old SX-70 Polaroid film that was going to be discarded. I took my first picture down on 16th and 9th Avenue, and the first words of the story appeared. I ran back to buy the rest of the bad film.

It must have been a terrible moment when the photographs began to deteriorate.

It wasn’t really. I lost my breath for a moment and then thought, This must be the story. It was such an interesting adventure up to that point, I almost would have been happy if it had ended with blank pictures. Fortunately I had scanned some of them, and the surviving 20 faces are what you see in this series.

Describe your partner Christopher Makos’ reaction to this catastrophe [Solberg and Makos work together professionally as the Hilton Brothers].

He shared in my shock and acceptance. We are the usual sounding board for each other’s projects.

How do the images capture the idea of military service today, and even throughout time?

Is our human experience in a loop? The faces of servicemen photographed by George C. Beresford could be today’s youth. Do we repeat the lives we once lived?

Describe the role of accidents and unintended consequences in art. Have you experienced this before?

A creative person is always looking for a good accident, whether they’re filmmakers, painters, writers, actors or photographers. Your eyes are always open for ‘the magic accident,’ where something beyond your initial intention jumps out at you.

How does this exhibition reflect your own aesthetic, and where do these images fit in your body of work?

One tries to stay closest to who they are and what they’re trying to say. This project didn’t have a strategy or any initial objective. I was simply curious to meet the subjects and acknowledge their service.

How long did you spend with a typical subject? What information did you collect?

It was ‘guerilla filmmaking,’ where you’re rolling up to a stranger in Times Square on a bike with a funny old camera, so most conversations were brief. Much to my surprise, most of them were flattered to be photographed. And they were the most open of any of my subjects. There was no need for instruction. There were no fake smiles. They just gave you honesty.

Aside from aesthetics, what do you venture your audience will experience when viewing these works?

If it makes a few of us a little more aware, as it did for me, I will be pleased.

“Service” by Paul Solberg runs through April 18^th at New York’s Casa de Costa gallery. For more information, visit www.casadecosta.com

Another winter in a summer town. Although Edith Bouvier Beale (now known to history as Little Edie) was desperate to escape the season’s bleak chill along the East Hampton seashore, we think it would be a great place to hide out and write undisturbed for a few months. And that is exactly what you can do: For the low, low price of $150,000, the legendary house and Bouvier Beale domicile Grey Gardens is for rent from now until the end of May (and that includes Memorial Day!). Known principally as the broken-down, lost-in-historical-twilight setting of the Mayles brothers 1975 documentary Grey Gardens—a portrait of Little Edie and her mother, Edith Ewing Beale (Big Edie), the cousin and aunt, respectively, of Jackie and Lee Bouvier, then living a reclusive life defined equally by nostalgia and squalor—the house was built in 1901 from an architectural design by Joseph Greenleaf Thorpe, who also created many of the original Hamptons residences of that era. In 1924, Phelan Beale and his wife, Edith, acquired the property, which they used, as people did then and still do, as a country retreat to escape noisy and traffic-clogged Manhattan. As fans of the Edies well know—and there are untold numbers of them—there ensued a charmed life filled with summer society galas, intimate musicales and debutante balls, a gay ritual during the between-the-wars years that, through divorce, indulgence and, ultimately, a lack of funds, degenerated by the 1970s into the iconic spectacle of a mother and daughter living in a house with scores of cats and mounds of garbage but no running water. The press went wild, and the former First Lady found herself in the uncomfortable and very public position of having to restore the house with the funds of her husband, magnate Aristotle Onassis. The documentary exposed mother and daughter’s outsize personalities and eccentricities to the world, and they became late-in-life celebrities. Big Edie died in 1977, but Little Edie went on, surviving until 2002 until her death in Bal Harbour, Florida.

Meanwhile, Grey Gardens itself has been owned since 1979 by the legendary newsman Ben Bradlee, and his wife, author Sally Quinn. The couple used up acres of money, time and patience, but the estate ultimately was brought back to its original elegance. And if you want to be there during a glorious Hamptons summer, enjoying the sunrooms and beach and fabled gardens, the rental goes down a bit to $125,000 for the two months of June and July. A current occupancy might seem the better bargain, but you also lose out on that prospect of a morning swim with Alec Baldwin.

For more information, visit www.corcoran.com

55″ x 19″

Plus shipping. Overnight available.

Amaris Jones, proprietor and chef of South Street, located in the Miami Design District.

No bird is safe on Saturday, February 23^rd, when the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival debuts a new event, Chicken Coupe. Hosted by chef Andrew Carmellini at the W South Beach—where he runs the Miami outpost of his New York destination restaurant The Dutch—the event showcases the delectable combination of champagne and fried chicken (thus the title pun). Alongside such chefs as Hugh Atcheson of Atlanta’s Empire State South, Jeff McInnis of South Beach’s Yardbird, and Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook of L.A.’s Animal will be new Miami culinary sensation Amaris Jones, whose restaurant, South Street, opened a mere four months ago and is already an eat-and-be-seen Design District hotspot.

Philadelphia native Jones teamed up with noted restaurateur Amir Ben-Zion to bring to life her North-meets-South brand of deliciousness—or, as she calls it, “organic neo-soul food.” Locals regularly dive into favorites such as the deviled eggs, shrimp and white-corn cheddar grits and grilled green tomatoes, but at the end of the evening, everyone really comes for the chicken. “I put a spin on my mother’s recipe,” Jones says, “with a special array of spices and herbs.”

The evening’s featured drink ideally complements the dish, she says: “Bubbles in champagne are known to cut through rich and fatty foods, which makes fried chicken an awesome pairing.” A selection of South Street’s signature soulful sides—from buttery mashed potatoes and candied yams to collard greens with smoked turkey—completes the experience.

And though Chicken Coupe attendees will be treated to sounds from DJ Blaze Carreras—not to mention a take-home champagne coupe glass from Riedel—Jones’ South Street soundtrack is almost as celebrated as her cuisine: “The best music to dine highlights the authenticity of the food. If I am eating at an Italian eatery I expect and want to hear some Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. At South Street you hear the best of soul, from Curtis Mayfield, the O’Jays and Teddy Pendergrass to Frankie Beverly and Maze, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu.”

For tickets or more information visit www.sobefest.com.

Visit South Street by Amaris Jones at  4000 Northeast 2nd Avenue. Miami 33137. (305) 573-5474. www.southstreetmiami.com

Shrimp and White Corn Cheddar Grits with Low Country Gravy

Braised Bone-In Short Ribs with sherry sauce and mash

South Street Signature Salmon Cakes

South Street by Amaris Jones is located in the heart of Miami Design District, previously the old Buena Vista Post Office. 4000 Northeast 2nd Avenue. Miami 33137.

Mom’s Free-Range Fried Chicken

Corn Pancakes

Chicken & Waffles