While working on a “Palm Beach Primer” for The Inside Source last week, I spotted a photo by Slim Aarons above a yellow ikat breakfast banqette in a room designed by San Francisco based interior designer Palmer Weiss, who was kind enough to identify it for me. His images are timeless, yet retro groovy. (See if you can spot who must surely be the prototype for Chuck Bass.)
Aarons, who was born in 1916, chronicled “the good life” of the upper classes of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. He approached society portraits, both formal and candid, with the eye of a photojournalist. His career was built on what he called, “photographing attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.”
Room designed by Palmer Weiss.
Poolside Gossip
A desert house in Palm Springs designed by Richard Neutra for Edgar Kaufman. Lita Baron approaches Nelda Linsk, right, wife of art dealer Joseph Linsk, who is talking to a friend, Helen Dzo Dzo, 1970.
• • •
Family Snapper
Babe Paley by the pool. Her husband, William Paley, is snapping the photographer at their cottage in Round Hill, Jamaica.
Staley Wise Gallery, NYC
• • •
American socialite and Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, the world’s richest woman, reclining by the Lido in Venice, 1958.
Staley Wise Gallery, NYC
• • •
Sundowners
Two bikini-clad holiday makers enjoy a glass of wine outside the Carlton Hotel, Cannes, 1958.
• • •
Rex Reed
Actor and film critic Rex Reed relaxes in a wicker chair on Great Harbour Cay in the Bahamas, 1973.
• • •
Jacqueline Kennedy at an “April in Paris” ball, c. 1959
Staley Wise Gallery, NYC
• • •
Capote at Home
Author Truman Capote relaxes with a book and a cigarette in his cluttered apartment, Brooklyn Heights, New York, c. 1958.
• • •
Guinness Family
Hon. Desmond Guiness in his recently acquired home Lixlip Castle, Co. Kildare, Ireland with his children Marina and Patrick. Holiday Magazine, 1963.
• • •
Beauty and the Beast
Lady Daphne Cameron on a tiger skin rug in the trophy room at socialite Laddie Sanford’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, c. 1959.
• • •
Mara Lane At The Sands
Austrian actress Mara Lane lounging by the pool in a red and white striped bathing costume at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, 1954.
• • •
Penthouse Pool
Young women by the Canellopoulos penthouse pool, Athens, July 1961.
• • •
Monocled Miss
Renata Boeck enjoying breakfast in bed at the Regency Hotel in New York, 1964.
• • •
Donald Lease
Mr. and Mrs. Donald Lease with their Rolls Royce and two pet dogs outside their home in Palm Beach, Florida, April, 1968.
• • •
Have A Topping Time
Socialite Alice Topping relaxing at a poolside in Palm Beach, 1959.
• • •
Gloria Schiff
Gloria Schiff, the twin sister of Consuelo Crespi, with her pet dog and pet birds at Lyford Cay in the Bahamas, 1963.
• • •
Lord Lichfield
British photographer Lord Lichfield holding a Hasselblad camera. On his arm is Marina Lante della Rovere, to the left is Ines Torlonia, and reclining is Signoria Gancia, Porto Ercole, Italy, c. 1970.
Follow StyleCarrot on Twitter
Follow StyleCarrot on Pinterest
| style carrot | 
Oh wow! LOVE these so much. I adore the glamorous 40s and 50s, these photos are a-maz-ing, thank you thank you!
LOVE these!! It’s exactly as he describes them. Total eye candy!
I love this post!! Every time I would go to the next photo… I would say, ” oh Truman, after Babe Paley.” one could do an article on the Cushing sister’s alone. The only person that
was not mention … C.Z Guest. Also Mrs Whitney. When I was ‘redesigning’ Club Collete, in Palm Beach. Mrs. Whitney and C.Z. Guest, gave me such wonderful ideas for the gardens.
I was so foretunate at such a young age… To have these amazing woman as mentors in my early years of designing. They were good friends
with Babe, Truman Slim Keith to name a few … These people, were the first to be called ‘jetsetters.’ They were so much more. They were ‘do-ers with with elegance.’ I love this post.
Hi Maureen – Thanks for that fun bit of info. Would love to see your work!
love slim aarons-he made life seem so luxurious and carefree.
LOVE this!!!