Nancy Talbot, co-founder of the eponymous clothing company which features conservative, ladylike fashions, died yesterday from complications of Alzheimer's disease. She was 89.
Fifty plus years ago, Nancy and her husband Rudolf opened their first boutique in Hingham, Massachusetts and started a mail order business one year later, in 1948.
Looking back, I remember buying a gold buttoned navy blazer in the days of
the "Official Preppy Handbook." I had saved up my movie theater concession girl salary to buy the must-have before leaving for Vanderbilt University. Unfortunately, I left the blazer in the student center cafeteria, never to be seen again. Vanderbilt in the eighties was a bastion of preppy attire. Headbands, kilts, cords, and Madras reigned supreme. It is no great shock that some other co-ed probably expressed delight in finding a Talbot's original! (Not to lay blame on a Kappa or Tri Delt!)
In more recent years, the Talbot's catalogue has become a personal test. Whenever I fear I may be a compulsive shopper or at least sartorially obsessed, I peruse through a catalogue and find nothing I am itching to buy. Generally speaking, this exercise has involved the Talbot's, Chico's, or J. Jill.
Yet, I will always hold a soft spot in my heart for Talbot's, Greenwich, Connecticut, and lime green wrap skirts....
Rest in peace, Nancy Talbot!
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