William Norwich
William Norwich
My father died when I was nine; my mother, after a long illness, slipped into a coma when I was seventeen and died two years later. I didn't have siblings. Despite money concerns aplenty, I managed to borrow funds and get my undergraduate degree at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. I moved to New York City in 1976 and taught school for a couple of years before attending Columbia University's MFA writing program. More college loans and waiting on tables and washing dishes until I was lucky enough to get a job assisting in the office of the late fashion writer and columnist Eugenia Sheppard. This led to my first job and my own byline as a journalist, writing an around-the-town column for the Daily News for six years and then the New York Post for two years. I next worked as an editor and writer at Vogue with the exception of the years 1999 to 2004 when I wrote and edited for The New York Times. In 2011, I left Vogue to edit books for Phaidon Press.
I was a late bloomer sexually. The mechanics of sex, with any person of any sexual persuasion, were confounding to me. How do you do that--well? Eventually, thanks to my interests, inclinations and my melancholy crushes, but not much actual experience, I determined that I was gay. With no parents to inform, or siblings, my coming out was uneventful and relatively easy. I met the actress and playwright Holland Taylor in a workshop for writers and actors in New York in the late 1970s. We became dear friends. In 1979, I visited her at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles while she was making a TV show. For the trip, at the Charivari boutique in Manhattan, I spent a week's dishwashing salary and bought a marvelous periwinkle blue cardigan sweater. Easter Sunday, during my visit with Holland, I wore the sweater to lunch at the home of the photographer Jean Howard. On the way there, I asked Holland if she thought people could tell that I was gay?
"Darling," she replied kindly, and with the comic timing for which she is known, "I do think certain sophisticated people will know that you are gay. Especially thanks to that sweater."
And with that, I was out and have remained, out, for the duration.
As for fashion, one of the mainstays of my journalism along with interior design, for me style is an intervention. Even in her last years when she was so unwell, my mother did her best to care for her appearance and stay up to date with the fashion magazines. Why bother? The designer Pauline Trigere was once asked why personal style mattered. She smiled. "Feeling blue?" she said. "Wear red."
That is the essence, to me, of why style matters and why I write about it so much. Whether it's a fancy Charivari cardigan back in the day or a swimsuit or jock strap from Charlie By Matthew Zink now, especially in red, it's self care in a world that, alas, too often doesn't give much of a damn.
Portraits and Book Artwork courtesy of William Norwich.
Learning to Drive, a novel by William Norwich
Poolside with Slim Aarons, introduction by William Norwich
Interiors - The Greatest Rooms of the Century, introduction by William Norwich
Linda Evangelista Photographed by Steven Meisel, introduction by William Norwich
My Mrs. Brown, a novel by William Norwich, also available on Audible
My Mrs. Brown, a novel by William Norwich, also available on Audible