The Angel in Chanel

Liz Tilberis was nice. Legendarily nice. People claimed that when she fired an editor, they left feeling they’d won something. (They usually left with a chic little gift, too.) In this episode, we explore the way that Liz’s natural warmth and ability to charm assistants and royalty alike made her not only something of a unicorn in fashion but fueled her ascent from Sixties London art student to editor of British Vogue and contributed to the unlikely success of her Harper’s Bazaar. 

With Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Grace Coddington, and Patrick Jephson, former private secretary to Princess Diana. 

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Transcript

Donna Karan
The love for Liz was beyond. 

Linda Evangelista
She was just, I mean, you know this, the loveliest person 

Patrick Jephson
Liz was, I would say, kind of like a big sister that accepted Diana as she was. 

Annemarie Iverson 

Liz seduced everyone. 

Grace Coddington
And, you know, everybody just fell in love with her. From day one. 

Cynthia True
Liz Tilberis was nice. Legendarily nice. 

Dennis Golonka
People joked that when she fired an editor, they left her office feeling they had won something. They also usually left with a chic little gift. 

Cynthia True
Her warmth, plus the fact that she was prematurely white-haired and relatable size 12, made her something of a unicorn in both fashion and magazines. 

Dennis Golonka
But there was a lot more to Liz than that. She was tough. She was tenacious, rebellious, wildly creative, and an excellent strategist. 

Cynthia True
Today, we're talking to Grace Coddington, Christy Turlington, Donna Karan, Sam McKnight, and Patrick Jephson, former private secretary to Liz's good friend, Princess Diana, about the relationships and background that shaped Liz into an outlier, a creative force who had the charm, the daring and the pure love of fashion to defy industry norms and rise to the top of the business while remaining beloved by her staff. 

Dennis Golonka
We're talking more with Linda Evangelista, too, and our friends from Nineties Bazaar, Paul Cavaco and Richard Sinnott, and Liz's former assistant, Stephanie Albertson. I'm Dennis Golonka. 

Cynthia True
I'm Cynthia True. Back in 1992, we were brand-new assistants at Harper's Bazaar, and witnessed firsthand its remarkable return from newsstand oblivion to its former status as America's most innovative fashion magazine. 

Dennis Golonka
The Nineties were the era of celebrity designers and supermodels. Magazines were at their peak influence, and suddenly, no magazine mattered more than Bazaar, a hip alternative to Vogue, and no one was more celebrated than its effervescent editor, Liz Tilberis. 

Cynthia True
This is Blow-Up: When Liz Tilberis Transformed Bazaar. 

Dennis Golonka
You're listening to Episode Two: The Angel in Chanel. By the time Liz left the hospital, just before Christmas 1993, word had spread through the fashion world that she had ovarian cancer. 

Cynthia True
Liz had told Hearst President Claeys Bahrenburg, who told her creative director Fabien Baron, who told Liz's close friend Karl Lagerfeld. Once the word was out in Lagerfeld's Paris atelier, an International House of Fashion Gossip, everyone who mattered knew within days. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz was pretty unruffled. She understood the talk. After all, information was their business. 

Cynthia True
She was less understanding about the announcement that Folio, a media trade magazine, ran, revealing her diagnosis before Liz had decided to go public. But there was nothing she could do, so she tried to focus on the line that called Harper's Bazaar one of the hottest magazines in the business. 

Dennis Golonka
She was also buoyed by the news that her surgery had been successful. Her doctor had told her she was going to make it. 

Cynthia True
Plus, Liz's many fans in the industry, old and new, plied her with a stream of notes and calls and filled her foyer with messengered gifts and bouquets. Liz joked that half of South America had been pillaged in floral tributes to her. 

Dennis Golonka
Evelyn Lauder sent regular deliveries from the gourmet deli E.A.T., and Daryl Hannah sent over homemade brownies delivered by her boyfriend, John Kennedy Jr, on bicycle. Princess Diana, one of the first to call when Liz was out of the hospital, was in touch almost every day, if not by phone, then with a handwritten note transmitted by fax. 

Stephanie Albertson
She called a lot, and they would have a lot of chats. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz's former assistant, Stephanie Albertson. 

Stephanie Albertson
That was a very real friendship. And I remember once she called, and the message was, "I'm just watching a movie with the kids..." And what did she say? She said something like, "I'm sitting in bed eating popcorn with the kids; have her call me back." 

Cynthia True
Liz and Diana had been introduced at British Vogue, whose editors advised the Princess on her official wardrobe. By the time Liz became editor-in-chief, the two were friends who lunched frequently, having bonded over being mothers of little boys. Now that Liz was living in New York, they made do with marathon phone calls. Wanting to lighten Liz's day, which often involved chemotherapy, Diana distracted her with light gossip about mutual acquaintances in London, and Liz ignored the frequent call-waiting beeps. "What's that?" the Princess asked. When Liz explained, Diana sounded relieved. "In England," she said, "it would be MI5." The Ministry of Intelligence was rumored at that time to have bugged the Princess's phone 

Dennis Golonka
Diana's former private secretary, Patrick Jephson. 

Patrick Jephson
A lot of what I saw in the friendship between Liz and Diana was an acceptance of there being no need to be anything other than yourself. And for Diana, that was refreshing and different and rare, because she didn't have the kind of husband or partner that luckier people have, in whose presence she could relax and be herself. So when she had a friend like Liz who didn't expect her to be anything more than she was, who didn't want her to be anything other than happy and relaxed, this was, I think, a weight lifted from her shoulders. 

Cynthia True
For Liz's part, she said there were very few people, apart from Diana, who knew how to talk to someone with a cancer diagnosis. 

Dennis Golonka
As Liz's family and inner circle rallied, so did she. When she began to lose weight during chemotherapy, she made a big joke of being able to, at long last, order Chanel suits in a size six. Ahead of her hair falling out. Tonne Goodman found Liz a Broadway wig-maker who made her a wig in a white shoulder-length bob that perfectly matched her own. She found the wig a bit awkward, but it was important to her that no one in the office be shocked by her appearance. 

Cynthia True
And she was conscious of the fact that her diagnosis was going to thrust her into the spotlight even more than before. Here's former Bazaar accessories director Richard Sinnott remembering her first day back at the office as she walked around the 37th floor, greeting every single person 

Richard Sinnott
You know, she had this wig on. I said, "Liz, welcome back." I said, "Listen, if you get tired of that wig back at home, I've got a Cher wig, I've got a red curly hair wig, I've got a blonde hair wig..." And she just kind of broke down and started laughing. And it just, you know, showed how strong and brave she was, and she kept her humor, and she didn't want sympathy. 

Dennis Golonka
Just a week after finishing treatment, Liz not only resumed work during office hours, but went back to her almost nightly social duties. She presented a CFDA award to an emotional Fabien at Lincoln Center, although she was almost too weak to get through hair and makeup. When Miuccia Prada saw her sitting quietly backstage, she came over and took her hand. "I went through the same thing many years ago," she said. Liz also hosted a party for Richard Avedon to celebrate the opening of his five-decade retrospective exhibit at the Whitney. 

Cynthia True
Liz was so charming at the party that Avedon didn't notice Andrew's hand on her back, practically keeping her upright, and he spun her around the room. "Oh, Liz," he said, "I completely forgot you were going through chemotherapy." 

Dennis Golonka
Carolyn Bessette, at that time a stylist at Calvin Klein, was more sensitive to the situation when she and the company's design director, Zach Carr, brought a rack of dresses to Bazaar for Liz to try on for an awards dinner just after she had had surgery. Carr wanted Liz to wear silver satin, but Liz was worried about her scars showing. Carolyn picked up on her feelings immediately. "She doesn't have the confidence right now," Carolyn quietly told her boss as she handed back the silver options. "Let her wear black." 

Cynthia True
If it came as a surprise to anyone that Elizabeth Kelly Tilberis was planning to fight for her life and fulfill the full range of her responsibilities as editor-in-chief, they hadn't fully appreciated that underneath Liz's soft exterior, there was steel. 

Richard Sinnott
Yeah, Liz was tough. It was like she didn't have it. You wouldn't know unless you read it or saw her and noticed there was a bit of a change. It changed the environment, you know, no one's like, "I'm tired, I have to go to the Chanel dinner." Like, you know, Liz is coming off chemo and coming into the office to look at images. You're tired? Yeah, get real. 

Dennis Golonka
It was that combination of steely and soft, that contrast of qualities, that made Liz so charismatic. And when you look at her background, it all makes sense. 

Cynthia True
Liz had what she described as the best possible start in life, an idyllic childhood in the English countryside as the eldest daughter of an eye surgeon and an heiress mother who'd been a mechanic during World War Two. 

Dennis Golonka
Along with her younger brother and sister, she spent her early years in a big red brick house, running around rose gardens, eating from crabapple trees, and hosting tea parties in her playhouse. 

Cynthia True
Although on paper a traditional, well-to-do British family, her parents had a thirst for adventure. And in 1957, when Liz was ten years old, they made a very unusual move for post-war Britain. They packed up their three young children, put their car on the SS Britannic, and sailed to America, where they embarked on a six-week road trip across the country. 

Dennis Golonka
And this, by the way, was not just any British car being shipped to drive on unknown American roads. It was a car that Liz's father built himself. He'd bought an old dark green Jaguar for almost nothing and fused it with the back half of a station wagon so that it could accommodate a family of five. 

Cynthia True
It's almost out of Roald Dahl. 

Dennis Golonka
It is. And watching her father stitch together a custom car must have fueled Liz's sense that anything was possible. 

Cynthia True
In addition to driving across America in a Frankencar with the driver on the wrong side, the Kelly family had to do the trip with just $600 for six weeks. Due to British currency regulations at the time, you could only take a certain amount of money abroad per person. 

Dennis Golonka
They stayed in the cheapest motels they could find and cooked Spam and baked beans on a portable camp stove. As they drove southwest from New York City, they stopped at the White House, the Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon. They ended in California, where Liz rode the Tomorrowland moonliner rocket at the two-year-old Disneyland, bought a Miss America Barbie doll, and toured...Hearst Castle. 

Cynthia True 

Fortunately, they had a smattering of relatives they could stay with, branches of the Kelly family, who had immigrated to the United States generations earlier and become very successful. There was cousin Mona, who owned her own cattle ranch; Great Aunt Isabelle, who was an anthropologist with a government contract; and, most intriguing to Liz, her Great Aunt Eve, who owned a dress shop in Santa Cruz. 

Dennis Golonka
The other hugely formative childhood experience for Liz was a more ordinary one for an upper middle-class British girl. At 11, she went off to Malvern Girls College. British boarding schools of that era were still Victorian with stringent rules and no hot water, notoriously difficult for many kids, but Liz hit the ground running. She loved the uniforms, the teachers, the starchy comfort food eaten at long tables, and especially lacrosse and hockey, which she played with zeal. 

Cynthia True
There was no sign of sweet Liz on the sports field. Despite her parents urging her to rein in her sharp elbows, she just couldn't. She played the only way she knew how fast and aggressive. If she broke a nose or two along the way, she didn't lose much sleep over it. She took too much delight in winning. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz's competitive streak was balanced by a natural empathy she said she got from her father, and it was honed living amongst dozens of preteen girls. 

Cynthia True
Someone was always in need of a cup of tea and a sympathetic ear, and Liz genuinely liked hearing their stories. As she later wrote, on those hallways, she learned that people's feelings count. 

Dennis Golonka
She credited those boarding school experiences with developing her ability to manage crews of photographers, models, makeup artists, and hair stylists on high-pressure shoots. 

Cynthia True
Underneath a surplus of charm, Liz also exhibited an early tenacity and a willful streak when she convinced her parents, who expected her to leave school and marry well, to let her go to art school, which was not at all the done thing for a girl of Liz's social class, in 1965. Her father didn't want her to go to university, period. He thought it was a waste of money. Despite that, Liz got accepted to several top art colleges and enrolled at Leicester Polytechnic, which had a good fashion design course. 

Dennis Golonka
But in Liz's first year, she caused a small scandal when she got suspended for having her boyfriend in her dorm room. She still didn't give up her plan. With the help of a professor who thought her punishment was ridiculous, Liz transferred to the Jacob Kramer Art College in Leeds to study for a year. It was a turning point. 

Cynthia True  
She fell madly in love with Andrew Tilberis, a handsome painter and instructor five years her senior. Andrew, the elegantly dressed son of an immigrant Greek restaurant owner, was considered quite the catch around Leeds, where he drove a Porsche and had a great jazz collection. He was a world away from the mild-mannered sons of doctors with whom Liz was expected to make a match. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz and her father had huge arguments about Andrew, among other things, but Liz didn't waver. She knew Andrew was the one, and she wasn't going to let family expectations stop her. In 1969, with that same self-determination, she entered a British Vogue essay contest that gave the winner an internship at the magazine. She wrote about the British costume historian James Laver. Liz was fascinated by his work on how fashion is a reflection of political and social trends. Simplicity tends to reflect prosperity, whereas elaborate designs often indicate a rough social climate. 

Cynthia True
She didn't win the contest, but she was the runner-up, and when the winner declined the internship, Liz accepted the position. It brought her into the most exciting place a fashion student could have possibly been in late 60s London: Vogue House in Hanover Square. Here's Grace Coddington, then an editor at British Vogue, 

Grace Coddington
She was, like, over the moon, and she could not do enough for everybody. You know, I don't think that she was specifically my assistant, but, you know, she worked around the office and certainly came on shoots and things with me and everybody shared everybody, kind of in the beginning years. I mean, she's just excited by everything, you know, nothing was impossible for her, you know, from day one as a kid. And she was very cute, very cute, a little bob. 

Cynthia True
Liz, like most of Sixties London, was slightly bowled over by Amazing Grace, as she was known. Just a few years older than Liz, Grace was a stunning model-turned-stylist, but more accurately, a fashion genius whose ability to instantly transform her personal style and set global trends kind of blew Liz away. Liz felt she was living a dream when Grace became a real friend. She later wrote of riding around London with Grace and her then-husband, Michael Chow, of the world-famous Mr. Chow's restaurant chain, in the back of their convertible Rolls Royce with Schubert blasting, 

Grace Coddington
And we just talked all day long, all night long, on the phone, round at each other's houses in the weekend and things like that. And we grew up together. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz was also dazzled by Vogue's legendary editor-in-chief, 46-year-old Beatrix Miller. Miss Miller, as everyone called her, was a beautiful enigma, a single woman who kept any romantic attachment she may have had an absolute secret. She had been an MI6 agent and detested personal publicity. Her secretary was Lady Sarah Spencer, older sister to Lady Diana. Diana's other sister, Lady Jane, worked at Vogue, too. That was typical, Vogue being a sort of finishing school for a certain type of aristocratic young woman. Liz always remembered how Miss Miller would periodically announce to the staff, "Today is a revolution!" and then throw out all the layouts and start the issue again from scratch. 

Cynthia True
Liz was keenly aware that while well-to-do, she didn't have the kind of profile or the double-barreled last name that moved you up the masthead at British Vogue. She decided to show off her sewing skills and perfect her ironing. But mostly, she impressed the sittings editors like Grace with her ability to soothe nerves and keep shoots for photographers like Terence Donovan and David Bailey airborne and witty, which was so important for British Vogue's modern and increasingly fantastical shoots, the kind Grace became famous for. 

Grace Coddington
And you know, everybody just fell in love with her from day one. And you know, that's how she built her whole life on being that person that everybody wanted to be with and work with and make it better for. You know. 

Dennis Golonka
After graduating from Leicester Art College, she returned to Vogue as an assistant and stayed for almost 20 years. 

Grace Coddington
Over her time there, she was, yes, assistant to my friend Polly Hamilton and Mandy Clapperton. She did those two women at the same time, and then she went and she was assisting a most amazing woman called Sheila Whetton, who used to be a model for Molyneux, and then came to work as a fashion editor. And she just was a fantastic woman, the chicest person you've ever seen. She was in her late 60s, 70s, and she swore like a trooper, and she and Liz got on incredibly well. 

Cynthia True
It wasn't all smooth sailing. One day, another assistant, an oil heiress, took Liz aside and said, "Look, I realize you don't have any money, but you've really got to dress better." 

Dennis Golonka
After Liz got over the humiliation, she decided to listen. She became highly resourceful at combining low-budget pieces and high-end thrift with luxury accessories. That creativity in styling herself made her the ideal editor for a brand-new column, More Dash than Cash, which became one of the magazine's most well-known. 

Willie Christie
What it was was everyday wearable clothes or evening clothes, not expensive, but, I mean, she styled them really well. It was good stuff, just inexpensive and, yeah, more dash than cash. 

Cynthia True
That's former fashion photographer Willie Christie, who frequently worked with Liz in her early British Vogue years. 

Willie Christie
I'm not sure if she started--because if you look up Beatrix Miller's biography, it says she started More Dash than Cash. Grace said that Liz did. Anyway, between them, they started More Dash Than Cash, and she asked me to do a shoot. So that was 74, I think. As I recall, it was very easy to do inexpensive clothes and make them look terrible if they were badly styled or badly put together. I mean, everything that she put together--I mean, she was a photographer's dream. She never had any ego at all, and personally, out on shoots, she was never pushing her clothes forward, demanding a three-quarter turn or a look this way, that way. She just looked into the picture as a whole, loved it, and then carry on. So there was never any stress at all. With some people there were. But no names. She was just a ray of sunshine. 

Dennis Golonka
That ray-of-sunshine reputation grew as she became known for the atmosphere she fostered on sets, often starting a shoot with the pop of a champagne cork. 

Cynthia True
Former Bazaar Beauty Director Annemarie Iverson. 

Annemarie Iverson
She loved champagne, and she would tell the story that when she'd go on a set as a fashion editor at British Vogue, she just would have champagne flowing from the beginning to the end. She wanted everyone to relax and have fun, and she truly believed she got better pictures that way and she had happier editors. Everything was a party. 

Cynthia True
It wasn't just the fizz that was brought to the set, but a willingness to let things unfold somewhat spontaneously, an interest in catching an unexpected spark. 

Grace Coddington
Yeah, and then she, you know, gradually grew and did big shoots, like lead shoots and things like that. I think what taught her more than anything was Bruce Weber, you know, they had just an incredible relationship, and have done the most beautiful shoots that stand now as very modern and very important to fashion, because I think his point of view changed fashion very much, and it skewed very much in her way. 

Cynthia True
You would never have known Liz was enduring some 14 rounds of IVF, which was a nascent procedure in the mid-80s. 

Grace Coddington
That whole IVF thing went on for ages, and she smiled through it. And I know it's a very depressing time, and it's a very hormonal time, and, you know, and as each time failed, it was terrible. And then eventually, she decided to adopt. And they interview everybody all around you, so they interview me and say, you know, "Do you think Liz and Andrew would make suitable parents?" And you know, if she got pregnant, would they just leave the other kid? And I said, "Liz could deal with 20 kids. She'd be fine." 

Dennis Golonka
Yes, she loved those boys. 

Grace Coddington
Yeah, she loved them. So I think when she found out that she was gonna get Robbie, she was doing this story on Willa Cather with Bruce Weber, and somehow it was full of children, and so she was dressing all these kids, and, you know, at the same time thinking, "Any minute now, I'm gonna have my own." 

Cynthia True
Well she was certainly—I don't want to say a maternal figure around the office, but she was very nurturing. 

Grace Coddington
Yeah, she was. She was maternal with all you guys. Yeah, I know, like when she worked with Bruce, and very often that involved somebody being nude or something. And she used to write to the model's family and say, "Don't worry, I was there all the time. There was no funny business." 

Dennis Golonka
Here's Christy Turlington, who was still a teenager when she started working with Liz. 

Christy Turlington
I always had this sort of sense that she was very maternal and, you know, genuine. If I was in London, for example, she would have a Sunday dinner at her home and invite myself. Or I remember one particular occasion where we were shooting with David Bailey for British Vogue. And you know, we were staying at, um, Cadogan Gardens Hotel, which is where British Vogue always had people stay. And I remember her extending that invitation to come around and have dinner in her home with her home with her kids and her husband. And I think even Grace Coddington came around, and we, you know, she made a roast and Yorkshire pudding and sat around the table in her kitchen. And I think it was probably the most intimate family sort of style experience I'd had up until that moment. And I think that sort of set the tone for how our relationship would evolve. I mean, I don't think I had anything quite like that. 

Cynthia True
In 1987, on her 40th birthday, Liz became the editor of British Vogue. Grace had moved to New York to work for Calvin Klein a while back, and Liz was on her own to subtly revamp the magazine to her liking. The transition needed to be smooth, of course, but Liz intended to make the clothes more glamorous and the writing and photography a little edgier. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz's other priority was Princess Diana. She felt that previous Vogue portraits of Diana had been overly formal and failed to capture the warm, funny woman Liz was getting to know so well. 

Cynthia True
They shared a sense of humor. At one lunch, when Liz complimented Diana on her Chanel loafers, Diana answered dryly that the logo, entwined C's, stood for Charles and Camilla. 

Patrick Jephson
I think, having come in as an advisor on fashion, Liz quite seamlessly and naturally evolved into a source of counsel on many things. One thing we shouldn't overlook, of course, is the age difference. Liz was, I would say, kind of like a big sister-ish figure, a big sister that accepted Diana as she was, who was practical in her help and advice. 

Cynthia True
Thinking that Diana might like the gregarious Patrick Demarchelier, Liz sent her a selection of his work, including a portrait of Patrick's sons. The Princess responded, as Liz had hoped, and agreed to be photographed informally by him playing with her boys in a barn at the family's country home, Highgrove.

Dennis Golonka
Liz and Patrick decided to photograph Diana and her children in black-and-white, which is more reliable than color when it comes to portraits. So many vibrant photos of Diana came out of that playful shoot that Liz was hoping that the Palace would allow one of them to be the December 1990 cover. But the Palace said No. 

Cynthia True
Still, the Princess and Patrick got along so well that she agreed to be photographed the following year for a themed dance issue. The Princess's favorite hairstylist, Sam McKnight, remembers how the now-legendary pictures happened. 

Sam McKnight
I made her hair look a little bit look like it was short hair with the tiara. We kind of modernized it. We weren't going to do the 80s. We were going to bring her into the 90s. And, you know, Linda had the short hair, and everything had gone much—the frou-frou was gone, and we were entering a new, kind of sleeker, powerful era. So I just made her hair look a bit shorter, and kind of stuck the tiara on. And, and Mary kind of toned down the makeup. And I mean, having said that, she looked absolutely amazing in the 80s too, but it was, you know, it's time to move on. 

Cynthia True
The Princess usually disliked posing for photographs. Patrick Jephson could always tell when she was reaching her limit at a sitting. 

Patrick Jephson
I would watch her interest just evaporate. And I'd think, come on, mate, you really better get this done because your time is running out. Whereas with Patrick Demarchelier, she always looked forward to her sessions. And plainly--I mean, the evidence is there for us all to see. 

Sam McKnight
We laughed a lot. I mean, Patrick had her in that white satin strapless gown, and Patrick said, "Oh bebe bebe bebe, seet on the floor seet on the floor." And of course, I'm having to translate. "He wants you to sit down." "What, on the floor?" "Yeah, yeah, sit on the floor." "Okay, all right." She was really laughing. So those laughs and those smiles are probably part of me translating what Patrick was saying. But Patrick was speaking in English. And I was translating his English for her, you know, "Oh, bebe bebe, [gibberish]" you know, the whole thing. And, well, I mean, I just adored Patrick, too. And, and they clicked. 

Dennis Golonka
When the issue came out with Diana's new pared-down look pictured inside, including radically short hair, the British public was shocked. 

Patrick Jephson
I would say that there was obviously a way in which these portraits, particularly with Patrick Demarchelier, played into an understanding, a realization, that Princess Diana was not anymore—if she ever had been—a 19-year-old mouse who looked pretty, produced children, and otherwise stayed in the background. This, though, revealed to the world a princess who was happy, particularly with Patrick Demarchelier. There was obviously a happiness about the relationship, and that I remember as being the comment that was made about those shoots. I rather liked that. You know, you could interpret it as criticism: "Yes, you know, it seems a bit too informal for a royal portrait." I liked the fact that she was happy. 

Cynthia True
The Palace may have thought just that: "a bit too informal," because when Liz asked to use the undeniably radiant tiara shots for the British Vogue cover, the Palace, once again, said no. There was no explanation, but Liz had a feeling it was a way of reigning in the Princess, whose restlessness was becoming publicly apparent. 

Dennis Golonka
Everyone was disappointed about the rejection, but Liz had a cover mock-up of the Princess created with a soft pink British Vogue logo and sent it to her as a gift. But, of course, Liz had no intention of giving up on a real Diana cover, even if it was a long shot. 

Cynthia True
In the fall of 1991, at a reception for the British Fashion Council Awards, Princess Diana asked Liz to introduce her to Linda Evangelista. 

Sam McKnight
Diana had always wanted to meet Linda. She was intrigued by the supermodels because those girls were the superstars of the time, and she was intrigued as to how they coped with the fame. You know? 

Linda Evangelista
You know, I think she asked us—Christy and Naomi—if we, if our diet was like McDonald's and cigarettes. At that point, it was whatever I wanted to eat, you know? 

Dennis Golonka
Noticing that the two women were connecting, Liz and Sam hatched a plan for the four of them to have a breakfast together at Joe's Cafe, which was owned by a friend of Liz's. 

Sam McKnight
There's a small chain of very nice shops called Joseph in London, and attached to one of the shops was one of the first cafes in a fashion store. It was Joe's Cafe. It was very trendy, in Chelsea, where all the cool stores are. And we thought, we need to go somewhere where, you know, we can talk, we can all chat and giggle, and we're not kind of worried about what the people at the next table are thinking all that. And we don't want anyone to see us. It was going to be a private thing. So Liz arranged for them to open the cafe early. Now, the Princess would have been absolutely mortified if she had thought they'd opened up just for her, so they had to kind of pretend they were open. 

Cynthia True
And didn't you guys cast attractive people to sit at the tables and pretend to be patrons? 

Sam McKnight
Yeah, but I think they found those from the staff and the shops. I think that was all the people who worked in Joseph that came and sat on the tables, and so it looked like it was busy. 

Cynthia True
Linda Evangelista laughed when we told her the customers were fake that day. Did you know that? 

Linda Evangelista
 I, I don't think so. I don't know. 

Cynthia True
It's quite a scene to envision, of course. Wondering what you recall of it. 

Linda Evangelista
Oh, well, I was nervous because I really loved her and I respected her, and then you meet her. I just remember how lovely she was. And we had some giggles, and she was, like, very open and honest. And with Liz, she makes everyone feel so comfortable instantly. 

Sam McKnight
There was no sort of world-changing chat. It was chit-chats. You know? It was kind of giggling and gossiping, 

Cynthia True
Making things even livelier, Liz had also brought Patrick. He had recently done yet another shoot with Diana. 

Sam McKnight
So we had this great picture of Diana with her short hair and a black turtleneck. And I think she had red nail polish. It may have been clear, I don't know, but she she had her chin on her hands, another one of Patrick's amazing, relaxed black turtleneck classic, you know, early 90s, perfect black turtleneck shot. And she had stopped biting her nails. I remember she was so proud of that image with her long nails. 

Dennis Golonka
In the shot that Sam's talking about, Diana looks right into the camera as if to announce the cancellation of Shy Di. 

Sam McKnight
Liz's secret mission was to persuade Diana to say yes to allowing her to use that image on the cover. So, of course, Patrick said, "Oh, we have a nice picture, da da da..." and he showed the picture, and Linda and I were like, "You need to put that on the cover." 

Cynthia True
By the end of coffee, Diana had said yes to a cover and told Liz to move forward with the chosen photo without seeking permission from the Palace. She would handle it. 

Sam McKnight
And Liz got her magnificent cover. And she did not force—she waited for it to organically happen, you know? 

Annemarie Iverson
Something it took me a while to understand about Liz is that she knew that, "I'm gonna tell Dennis this, and Dennis is gonna tell Cynthia, but Cynthia won't tell that person, but will definitely tell Tommy Hilfiger, and Tommy will do this." Like, she was able to chess-play information. 

Cynthia True
Liz's younger sister, Lois, was with the Foreign Service. MI6, some said. From her, she learned about using certain people as mailboxes to carry a message for you, rather than you having to communicate too directly. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz thought it was an excellent tool in business and relied on office buzz, as well as a few "Deep Throats" to excel at work. In fact, it was why she didn't have a private bathroom at Bazaar like most editors-in-chief. She said a visit to the ladies was a chance to gather information. 

Annemarie Iverson
So yes, she's gracious and fun and kind and generous and frothy and amazing, but every conversation has got this matrix underneath it, and you follow it, and you see where it's going. And they were all alive, you know, in a circuit board in Liz's head. Her brain was remarkable. 

Dennis Golonka
The best-selling December 1991 issue of British Vogue with Princess Diana on the cover for the first time in 10 years, was not just a big move vis à vis the Windsors, it was Liz's coda to Condé Nast. The following month, she would be announced as Bazaar's new editor-in-chief. 

Cynthia True Willie Christie again. 

Willie Christie
Was I surprised when she went off to America? With hindsight, no. But at the time, nobody, I think, was going anywhere because we were having too much fun. There was never climbing the ladder. But if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be Liz. But you never saw this side. A lot of people, you go, "She's going places," or "She's going to cause trouble," whatever. But with Liz, not. 

Cynthia True
One of the first things Liz ordered for her corner office at Bazaar was a deep, white, shabby-chic sofa, the kind you could sink into with a cup of tea and a cigarette. And unless she was in a big meeting, she left her door open. Former Fashion Director Paul Cavaco. 

Paul Cavaco
I went in every morning. I would walk in, this is the era of smoking, and I would just come in in the morning, you know, sit down at her desk, we'd smoke cigarettes together and talk about, you know, our families and what she wanted to do. And it was just—the atmosphere was really adorable. 

Annemarie Iverson
Well, I mean, they were the like, little parties, like, all day long, you felt like you were at a party. Like Monday morning, having coffee on her big white sofa and dishing about your weekend, and you know, what you saw and where you went, that felt like a party, seeing all your friends and editors in Liz's room on Monday morning. And we're like, "What meeting is this? Do we need notes? Do we need research?" "No! I just want to gossip," she says. And we just, it was just amazing. And then the odd lunch where she took us to Petrossian, and we're like drinking champagne and caviar just because Liz wanted to treat and have a good time. 

Dennis Golonka
If Richard Sinnott wasn't also hanging out on Liz's couch, he could often be found marching towards it in high heels, grabbed from the accessories closet, cheered on by the staff. 

Paul Cavaco
It was so—because he used to do backflips with the high heels off. Yes, yes. And sometimes, if he landed funny, the heel would snap off—and then we just had to throw away the pair of shoes because he broke the heel off. 

Dennis Golonka
For all the fun we had in the office, going overseas to the shows was when everybody worked and played hardest, with Liz leading the way. 

Richard Sinnott Liz was naughty. 

Cynthia True Yeah. 

Richard Sinnott
You know? She had a naughty sense of humor. I think that's why she liked me. You know, we would go out to dinner when we were in Europe, and she would just keep filling my glass with wine and asking me stories. And then, you know, everything would come out like, "Oh, she was such a bitch at the fashion show, and oh my God, you know, I saw [BEEP} in the back room at the gay bar with his pants pulled down to his knees, and, Oh my god, Liz..." And she would just keep pouring the wine! 

Annemarie Iverson
With Liz, it was all fun. And underneath it was business. We all knew what we had to do, but you didn't show the effort. That was the secret. 

Richard Sinnott
Liz was IT. Everyone, every designer, they all loved her. And worshiped her. Everyone wanted to be in her orbit. And it was glamorous. It was wonderful. And I remember, like a lot of the other editors who I was friends with at some other magazines, they couldn't wait to be invited to like a Dior dinner or Chanel, so they didn't, so they didn't have to deal with their crew. We all flocked together. You know, we would all try to get the same cars together, and we would all want to have dinner with her together. We were treated like royalty. And Liz let every person be who they are. And she was clever. Liz always found out everything that went on, whether it was me cartwheeling, naked, drunk down the Champs Elysee... 

Cynthia True
This is the stuff I want to hear. 

Richard Sinnott
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, you don't. 

Cynthia True
I do. 

Dennis Golonka
Richard could do a standing backward jump in a bar. He would hand me his beer and then just jump backward in a bar filled with people. And then I'd hand him back his beer. 

Richard Sinnott
Yes! 

Dennis Golonka
Or Scotch. I think that's what we drank. 

Richard Sinnott
Yes, it was Scotch, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Liz loved it! 

Annemarie Iverson
Liz seduced everyone—everyone from the doorman to the chauffeur to the photographers to writers to someone seating her at a fashion show. She was oozing with charm. 

Cynthia True
But Liz's connection to the staff ran deeper than good times. She made people she worked with feel like family, in no small part, because she put their families first. Here's Paul Cavaco remembering the time he missed a meeting Liz was having in her office with Donna Karan. 

Paul Cavaco
I was supposed to be at the meeting, and I don't end up at the meeting because my daughter's a teenager and has not come home, and I am freaking out. So I'm home because I don't want to go to—you know, I'm just waiting till she turns up. Finally, she turns up, and I get there, and she's in this meeting, and she sees me. Like I put my head, and she sees me, and the first thing she says to me is not, "Where were you?" It's like, "Is everything okay?" And that, to me, was always how she was. She understood what it was to have a family and have to work, and you know, she had so much space for all of us, and so we were all able to be who we were because she allowed it. 

Dennis Golonka
Donna Karan, who counted Liz as one of her closest friends, immediately saw that same empathetic quality when they first met in London. 

Donna Karan 
She was with Vogue at the time, and we sat down at the dinner table, and I have to tell you, I fell in love with Liz. She wasn't your typical fashion person, let's put it that way. She was about heart and soul. And from that moment on, Liz and I really connected on so many levels that, you know, it just goes on and on. I think every major thing that I did in my life, I attribute to Liz. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz's assistant, Stephanie Albertson, who was just a few years out of college when she came to work for her, thought of Liz as family, too. 

Stephanie Albertson
We did become—we became friends. I mean, it was oddly like a mother-daughter relationship, and I got to be very close to her kids and her husband. So one year, on my dog's birthday, she gave him a gift and wrote him a note.

Dennis Golonka
Oh, how adorable, can you read that

Stephanie Albertson
She gave him a black leather Gucci dog collar. 

Dennis Golonka
Oh, my God. 

Stephanie Albertson
"Dear Beau, Happy, happy birthday. Although we're just about to go into summer colors, all the best Manhattan dogs are still in black. With love, Sam Tilberis." That was her dog. So her dog gave my dog a birthday gift. 

Cynthia True
How many people would think to give someone's pet a birthday present, let alone someone running a magazine? 

Dennis Golonka
I know. But that was Liz. 

Cynthia True
I mean, considering the number of people she dealt with daily, her bandwidth was remarkable. 

Dennis Golonka
Yeah, as much energy as she gave the magazine, she made the people behind it a major priority. And we felt that, because the magazine business, as you know, was not typically warm. It generated a lot of loyalty for her. Here's Donna Karan again. 

Donna Karan
The love for Liz was beyond. You know, she was not "Liz Tilberis." You know, she was Liz. She was a real woman. 

Dennis Golonka
Christy Turlington again. 

Christy Turlington
You know, always a smile, always asking about my family. And, you know, just, I think, really unique in the industry. 

Richard Sinnott
She was just consistent in who she was, um, powerful as well as smart and funny. So you always felt comfortable when you were with Liz, and you also felt safe. 

Cynthia True
To what degree do you think that contributed to the success of the magazine, that sort of anti-fashion attitude? 

Richard Sinnott
I think her attitude kind of, I think it blew it out of the water. You know, Liz was a conductor. Liz knew how to lead those people to greatness, and I don't think anyone else could have done what she did. 

Donna Karan 

I mean, Anna is amazing, but the relationship I had with Liz was on a much, much deeper level. 

Paul Cavaco
There was so much—people would just give over to her because she was so wonderful. So we got a lot of things. 

Annemarie Iverson
I mean, you could say, if you were cynical, you could say that there were two levels. There was this level of fantasy going on, that we were living this fantasy, that everything was happy and good, and all the pictures were good, and everyone's work would get in, and it was all wonderful. And then there was this sort of other fantasy, or, you know, underworld, where things were cut, and people weren't kind. But Liz chose to live the fantasy reality, and as much as possible, I jumped there with her, and I tried to live that. I think we all did. 

Dennis Golonka
In May 1993, after six months of chemotherapy, surgery, and relentless testing, Liz's doctor told her that she was officially cancer-free. Except for a monthly blood test, she could spend the summer with Andrew and the boys, having long weekends at the beach. That fall, the Council of Fashion Designers of America—the CFDA as they're known--told Liz they wanted to give her a Special Award for her work on ovarian cancer research and asked her to choose someone to present it. 

Cynthia True
Knowing the CFDA expected her to pick someone of renown, Liz asked Princess Diana if she would do the honors. And when she said she'd love to, Liz decided to play her lady-in-waiting on the quick trip. She requested a Range Rover to chauffeur them around as they drove from the tarmac at JFK straight to Harlem, where Diana was visiting the Pediatric AIDS unit she informally, though famously, patronized. 

Patrick Jephson
What I was struck by was Diana's determination that Liz should be included, should feel part of whatever positive things were going on in Diana's life, too. When Diana revisited the Harlem Hospital Center in 1995, the center that she had first visited in 1989, she said to me, "Patrick, I want Liz to come too." So we arranged for Liz to come. And there was her friend, Princess Diana, doing what she did every day, pretty much: Being a source of hope and comfort to people in great need. And I can remember watching Liz's face, and there was a mixture. She was a little anxious, I think, because she was out of her normal environment. But there was a tenderness in her look as she watched Diana. There was a feeling, I think, that here was Diana, who she had helped emerge from a shy and retiring and rather anxious teenage princess to this woman who was confidently going around the world doing this extraordinary work and looking great doing it.

[CROWD CHEERS]

Announcer
A raucous New York welcome for Princess Diana's fifth trip to America in a year. 

Dennis Golonka
The weight of the day lifted when Diana arrived at Lincoln Center in a form-fitting blue column dress by Catherine Walker with spaghetti straps that crisscrossed in the back and slicked-back hair. 

[CROWD CHEERS]

Announcer
There were stars and supermodels, but they'd all come to see the world's most photographed woman. 

[APPLAUSE]

Patrick Jephson
I mean, as soon as I saw the hair, when we were still in the hotel, I thought, this is going to be a big story. My immediate concern was, I hope it isn't a story that detracts from the meaning of the occasion. That's always the calculation you have to make. 

Cynthia True
She and Liz looked incredible together as they strode practically arm-in-arm past a swarm of photographers into the event. It was early January 1995, just over a year since Liz had been diagnosed, and now she was in remission, being feted at the event of the season for her already-considerable efforts on behalf of ovarian cancer research. 

Dennis Golonka
Liz had invited a small circle: Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Veronica Hearst, Isaac Mizrahi, and Kate Moss to sit at the table with her and the Princess. Isaac and Kate arrived late, and in Liz's estimation, they were nonchalant. 

Isaac Mizrazhi
I don't know if you know this story. She had this dinner at Lincoln Center, and she invited me, and she was like, "Okay, so Kate's gonna be your date." I was like, Okay. You know, Kate and I knew each other. And so I went to pick up Kate on schedule, right? 

Paul Cavaco
But Kate Moss, at that moment, is shooting for American Vogue. 

Cynthia True
Liz had asked Paul to collect Kate when she was finished and style her for the evening. 

Paul Cavaco
So I have to go to the Hilton Hotel where she's shooting, get her off the shoot, get her into the car, dress her, and I have shopping bags filled with shoes. Find the shoe we like, and then she's like, "I hate the strap on the shoe." So I have scissors because, you know, I had my prop kit with me. So I have my scissors. I cut off the wrong strap. So this shoe can't fit on her foot. So we have to go—Hearst is right there. 

Cynthia True
Paul rushed Kate up to the 37th floor, Harper's Bazaar editorial, and they headed for the big walk-in accessories closet. 

Paul Cavaco
So we go there, get a pair of shoes, and we're late. 

Cynthia True
Isaac, meanwhile, was still waiting outside Kate's house and getting very nervous. 

Isaac Mizrazhi
And I'm sitting there, and it's okay, half an hour, 45 minutes, and I keep buzzing. So finally, Kate came down an hour and a half later, and we got to Lincoln Center, and there was no more paparazzi, nothing, no more—everybody was seated. And there was this big hole at Liz's table, with the, with the Princess, and it was not okay. It was just not okay. And and it was Kate's fau—Kate was the subject. She's the one who's supposed to know the protocol about getting to the table on time before the Princess, right? 

Cynthia True
Paul felt like the whole thing was his fault. 

Paul Cavaco
I was like, mortified. I thought I have just ruined, you know, Kate's opportunity to meet Princess, Di. 

Isaac Mizrazhi
And then, of course, I was, you know, I was sort of to blame. And Liz was mad at me for a very long time. And I hope she was more mad at Kate 'cause it was Kate's fault. 

Dennis Golonka
The evening soon improved. As Diana took her place on stage, someone in the audience yelled out, 

Unidentified Move to New York! 

[CROWD CHEERS, LAUGHS]

Dennis Golonka
"Move to New York." That sound bite was an immediate global headline, 

Princess Diana
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm immensely proud to be here in New York tonight with you all, to be giving this award to a lady from my own country who is also a dear friend and whose talent and courage has been an inspiration to us all. Ladies and gentlemen, Liz Tilberis. 

Cynthia True
Diana didn't speak long, but that footage and Diana's striking visual statement elevated Bazaar's cultural currency even more. A parting gift from the Princess. Liz's new year was off to a strong start. Cancer was behind her. The world was for her, and she and Fab had big ideas about where to take Bazaar next. She had no inkling that the biggest fight of her life was right around the corner. That's next time on Episode Three. 

Dennis Golonka
Plus, we'll go with Linda Evangelista, David Sims, Amber Valletta, and Tonne Goodman behind the scenes of two of the most important fashion shoots of the Nineties.

Cynthia True
Blow-Up is hosted and produced by Dennis Golonka, and me, Cynthia True. It was written and edited by me, Cynthia True. Original theme song is by Stephen Phillips. Sound design and mix, Erik Wiese. The episode was recorded at VoiceTrax West, the Cutting Room, and Digital Arts New York. Special thanks to Clay Morrow and Matthew Saver.