British fashion designer David Sassoon, 92, has died, it was announced on April 10, and no, I don’t know if he was related to Vidal or Siegfried. Sassoon’s father refused to let him become an actor, so he went into fashion design instead (there was a guy who knew how to annoy his dad!). With his designing partner Belinda Bellville (who died last year), he dressed such celebrities as Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and Jacqueline Kennedy. He was best known for dressing just about every member of the royal family (except the Queen, who favored Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies). Sassoon designed those godawful “Laura Ashley on goofballs” 1980s dresses for Princess Diana, eventually slimming the designs down in the ’90s. He recalled his first visit to Buckingham Palace, to do a dress for Princess Anne in 1960: “I went through the tradesman’s entrance.” He then stepped into one of the Queen’s corgis’ water bowls. “A liveried page appeared, wiped my shoes and the carpet, and left. This wasn’t exactly what I had planned for my first visit to the palace.” In later years he turned to ready-to-wear: “No one has time for fittings,” he said, “and the days of making whole wardrobes are over.”
