Late Gossip Columnist ‘Suzy’ to be Focus of Kent State University Museum Show

As someone who chronicled more parties and galas than she could count and who always dressed for the occasion, it’s fitting that the late Aileen Mehle’s designer attire will soon be in the spotlight.

Mehle — a witty, ebullient beauty, who was best known as the columnist “Suzy” — penned stories on Nouvelle Society and the frenzied celebrity culture that succeeded it. Her columns appeared in WWD and W between 1991 and 2005. A titian-haired temptress whose personal style echoed that of Elizabeth Taylor in the 1960s and ’70s (think caftans, massive jewelry and sky-high hair), Mehle was very attractive to men and was linked with shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, film producer Walter Wanger and Frank Sinatra. By her own account, she covered “the terribly rich, terribly important, terribly powerful celebrities and social figures.”

“Sparkle: The Style and Jewelry of Aileen Mehle” will be unveiled on July 18 at the Kent State University Museum. The longtime WWD gossip columnist was always in-the-know, circulating in the rarefied world of New York society. She was the type of insider who received personal letters from Jacqueline Kennedy, Joan Crawford and Truman Capote among others. The “In Cold Blood” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” author started talking her up when she was writing a society column covering Palm Beach and Miami for the Miami Daily News. When Mehle’s second marriage to Mark Kenneth Frank Jr. fell apart in the late 1950s, she relocated to New York. At that time, the city had seven daily newspapers that each had gossip columns. Her rivals included Walter Winchell, whose readership was estimated at 30 million people, and Igor Cassini, whose brother Oleg was a fashion designer.

In a 1966 Life magazine interview, Mehle explained, “What I do is somewhere between ditch-digging and galley-slaving. It is a neck-swiveling, don’t-miss-anything job. When I walk into a party, while I’m saying, ‘Hello darling, hello dear, how are you?’ to everyone I haven’t seen since yesterday, I case the place. I have a fast eye. I also listen, listen, listen. When I come home dog-tired at 1 a.m., I often haven’t a line to go on. I’ve even put my little head down on the typewriter and cried a few rusty tears. But then I snap out of it and get to work.”

Next month dozens of Mehle’s designer evening gowns and dazzling jewels will go on view at the Kent State University Museum. Running through Aug. 23, the exhibition is meant to reposition Mehle not only as a sharp chronicler of high society, but also as a forgotten fashion icon. An Oscar de la Renta pink gazar slipdress with a matching jacket covered with sequins and feathers and an embellished chiffon caftan from Zandra Rhodes’ “Mount Olympus” collection will be in the mix, as well as designs by Pauline Trigère and Yves Saint Laurent. There will also be fine jewelry from Tiffany & Co., David Webb and Bulgari among others.

James Fallon, chief content officer of WWD and Fairchild Media Group, said, “Aileen — aka Suzy — moved in rarefied circles, or should I say, rarefied circles moved around Aileen. She was, in the years she wrote for WWD, almost always bedecked in frills and froth, sometimes with a boa wrapped around her. But those soft outfits covered a steely reporter whose eyes never missed anything and whose ears heard every whisper of affairs, scandals and the latest social gossip. She was repeatedly asked to write a tell-all book about her life, but would always respond that she knew too many secrets to tell them all. It is a cliche to say someone is one of a kind, but in Aileen’s case, there is no better description.” 

Friendly with the museum’s founders Jerry Silverman and Shannon Rodgers, Mehle started donating pieces in the 1990s and continued to do so up until her death in 2016. The “Sparkle” show is part of the Kent State University Museum’s 40th anniversary season, which will also include an exhibition on contemporary North African fashion that will bow Sept. 5, an installation of costumes from the 2024 feature film “Wicked” that opens later that month and a retrospective of LeRoy Neiman’s fashion illustration. To further engage visitors to the Mehle exhibition, organizers are constructing a closet that will be filled with some of her designer clothes. But there’s no telling what “Suzy” would make of strangers digging around in her closet.