{"id":702761,"date":"2025-11-17T17:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T14:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=702761"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T14:56:10","slug":"the-met-inaugurates-the-conde-m-nast-galleries-in-the-presence-of-the-publishers-daughter-leslie-bonham-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=702761","title":{"rendered":"The Met Inaugurates the Cond\u00e9 M. Nast Galleries in the Presence of the Publisher\u2019s Daughter Leslie Bonham Carter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Runway<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Met Inaugurates the Cond\u00e9 M. Nast Galleries in the Presence of the Publisher\u2019s Daughter Leslie Bonham Carter<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
By <\/span>Laird Borrelli-Persson<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

November 17, 2025<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Leslie<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Leslie Bonham Carter.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Three of The Met\u2019s most visited exhibitions were organized by the Costume Institute. Soon, museum-goers will be able to relish fashion almost as soon as they enter the building. In addition to announcing the department\u2019s upcoming show (and de facto Met Gala topic)\u2014\u201cCostume Art\u201d\u2014the Metropolitan Museum of Art inaugurated the Cond\u00e9 M. Nast Galleries, the new permanent first-floor home for fashion exhibitions, in the presence of the late publisher\u2019s daughter Leslie Bonham Carter and members of her family. \u201cFor all of us at Cond\u00e9 Nast,\u201d said Roger Lynch, the company\u2019s chief executive, \u201cthis is a full-circle moment . . . our company and The Met have worked together to elevate fashion from craft to art form, making it part of our shared story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nast, born in New York City in 1873 and raised in St. Louis, was a self-made man with a seemingly innate talent for promotion and a facility with numbers. \u201cHe lusted over mathematics,\u201d recalled Edna Woolman Chase, Vogue<\/em>\u2019s, editor in chief from 1914-1952, in her memoirs, and noted that early in his career the publisher was known as \u201cFigure Jim.\u201d In 1907, 10 years after he had moved to New York to make his fortune, Nast was heralded as being not only the \u201chighest salaried young man in the world,\u201d but as one \u201cknown to the publishing world as perhaps the greatest expert in the country on national advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

After years of negotiations, in 1909 Nast acquired Vogue<\/em> from founder Arthur Turnure\u2019s estate. All of his magazines, which by 1920 included House & Garden,<\/em>Vanity Fair,<\/em> and British and French editions of Vogue,<\/em> prospered thanks to his theory of \u201cclass publications,\u201d which he published in 1913. While all Cond\u00e9 Nast titles catered to elevated tastes, class in this context meant cohorts based on interest. The publisher was more interested in cultivating passionately engaged audiences than chasing circulation numbers. Quality over quantity, in short.<\/p>\n

In pursuing excellence in all areas of the business, Nast was responsible for advances in art and technology. Caroline Seebohm, one of his biographers, has claimed that Nast not only \u201cgave fashion photography artistic legitimacy, a publishing achievement that transformed the photographic literature,\u201d but that it was through his \u201cvigorous interest that fashion photography later found its way into the galleries and museums.\u201d Supporting this argument she quoted Horst P. Horst, who wrote, \u201cPhotography owes him an incalculable debt. In the early days of Vogue<\/em> and Vanity Fair,<\/em> it was he who persuaded Baron de Meyer and Commander Edward Steichen literally to create fashion photography. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking beautiful images wasn\u2019t enough; Nast wanted the photographs printed on good quality paper using the best reproduction techniques, so in 1921 he acquired a printing company in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, that he transformed into a state-of-the-art facility. Next up was perfecting color printing in the company\u2019s own photoengraving plant. \u201cBy insisting on the best-quality paper and printing, Nast paved the way for the success of the art magazine,\u201d Seebohm wrote. \u201cHis publications proved that a connection between fashion and art was not only plausible but promotable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"The<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

The ballroom at 1040 Park Avenue.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed by Mattie Edwards Hewitt, Vogue,<\/em> August 1, 1928<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Outside of work, Nast and Frank Crowninshield (his good friend, who was one of the organizers of the 1913 Armory Show at which Cubism debuted in America, and who became the editor of Vanity Fair<\/em>) were key figures in caf\u00e9 society, especially after the publisher started hosting lavish parties. \u201cHe was the first person\u2014well, maybe not the first<\/em> person\u2014but he was famous for mixing high society with people who worked with the arts,\u201d Nast\u2019s daughter Leslie Bonham Carter told Vogue.<\/em> \u201cOne of the minor things that struck me very much was that he brought together in his famous parties Groucho Marx and Mrs. Vanderbilt.\u201d (The invitation list to the Met Gala is similarly varied.) From 1925, the setting for these Gatsbian entertainments was Nast\u2019s 30 room penthouse at 1040 Park Avenue. Decorated by Elsie De Wolfe, it featured a ballroom with a parquet floor imported from France and 18th century hand-painted Chinese wallpaper recovered from an English estate.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Cond<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Cond\u00e9 Nast and his daughter Leslie at a party at 1040 Park Avenue.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Unknown<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Known to most as Cond\u00e9, to Bonham Carter he was simply Dad. \u201cIt was a lovely relationship,\u201d she recalls. \u201cHe was wonderful to me. And I remember he used to take me out for an ice cream soda in Madison Avenue at Schraft\u2019s and we had great fun. . . . He was with me very gentle, very loving, very interested. And therefore I loved him very much.\u201d The feeling was mutual; as Chase wrote, Nast\u2019s \u201caffection for [Leslie] was the true happiness of his last years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nast, married twice, was father to three children. Coudert Nast and Natica Nast (later Warburg) were born in 1903 and 1905 respectively, during his first marriage to Clarisse Coudert. In 1928 the publisher, then 55, married the 21-year-old Leslie Foster. Their daughter, Bonham Carter, was born in 1930, and is named after her mother. The two were known as Big Leslie and Little Leslie.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father,\u201d explained Bonham Carter, \u201cjustified to himself marrying somebody so very much younger because he was a millionaire. And then came the crash [in 1929], and he lost everything. \u2026 I remember the exhaustion he felt in desperately trying to piece it together.\u201d \u2026 And it was at that point [1932] that he [practically delivered my mother] into my stepfather\u2019s arms, because he felt so terrible, not only being unable any longer to give her all the things she loved, but also that his time was so taken up, was desperately trying to [salvage his company].\u201d<\/p>\n

Big Leslie\u2019s new husband was British Lieutenant Colonel Reginald \u201cRex\u201d Benson, a dashing banker, polo player, and diplomat. Little Leslie spent her summers with her mother, traveling by ship (once under the care of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy). Bonham Carter, who attended the Brearley School, lived with her father in his \u201cwonderful apartment\u201d until she was 11, when, with her father\u2019s health failing, she joined her mother and stepsiblings in Washington, where Benson was a British military attach\u00e9. They later moved to England in 1943.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

In 1949 Bonham Carter married Lord St. Just, who she had met three years prior at a country dance, and with whom she had one daughter. When her marriage was dissolved in 1955 she wed Mark Bonham Carter, with whom she had three daughters, and was \u201cvery happy indeed.\u201d Some credit for this auspicious match must be given to Big Leslie, who unwittingly made the introduction. \u201cAt the time, Bonham Carter recounted, \u201cwe lived in Sussex and Anthony Eden lived very close by. My mother had invited them to dinner and she was scratching her head trying to think of someone who\u2019d interest him. She knew that Mark was a very clever and a very political young man\u2014well, his grandfather was Asquith, the Prime Minister. I\u2019d never met him . . . anyway, so she invited Mark for the weekend entirely in order to meet Anthony, and that\u2019s how it all started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonham Carter\u2019s relationship with fashion goes much further back. \u201cI always cared [how I looked] from the very beginning. I remember even at school dictating to everybody else what they should wear.\u201d \u201cMy grandmother is the most elegant lady I\u2019ve ever known,\u201d said her granddaughter Flo Phillips. \u201cI often turn up to see her after work, bedraggled after a day of juggling, to find her resplendent in her chair, almost regal. An inspiration to all\u2014forget being 95.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inauguration of the Cond\u00e9 M. Nast Galleries is a historic moment for The Met and for the family. \u201cYou can imagine how exciting it is for me,\u201d said Bonham Carter a week before the event. How might Nast have felt about it? \u201cWell, he would\u2019ve been very pleased, wouldn\u2019t he?\u201d<\/p>\n

Below, highlights from the lives in fashion of Cond\u00e9 Montrose Nast and his daughter Leslie Bonham Carter.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

The first cover of Vogue.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span>Cover art by A. B. Wenzell, Vogue,<\/em> December 17, 1892<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

1873<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cond\u00e9 Montrose Nast, the third of four children of William F. Nast and Esther Benoist Nast, was born New York City. He was raised in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

1892<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vogue<\/em> was established by Arthur Baldwin Turnure, a Princetonian, member of the 400, and a founder of the Grolier Club (devoted to \u201cbook arts\u201d). \u201cThe definite object is the establishment of a dignified authentic journal of society, fashion and the ceremonial side of life, that is to be for the present, mainly pictorial,\u201d he wrote in the inaugural issue of December 27, 1892.<\/p>\n

1891-1895<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast attended Georgetown University. He received his BA in 1894 and MA the following year, upon which he moved back home and studied law at Washington University. He graduated and was admitted to the bar in 1897.<\/p>\n

1897<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a brief stint with a printing plant his brother had invested in, Nast accepted the invitation of his college friend, Robert Collier, to move to New York and work at Collier\u2019s Weekly<\/em> with a starting salary of $12.00 a week. His success was such that in his seven years with the company, Nast was promoted to advertising manager and then business manager.<\/p>\n

1902<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast married Clarisse Onativia Coudert, who was described by The Canton Press-News<\/em> at the time as \u201cone of the most charming young women of the Tuxedo colony. Miss Coudert is also a favorite in fashionable Paris, where she has spent several seasons with her sister, the Marquise de Choiseul. Miss Coudert is of mixed American and French blood and is very vivacious and beautiful\u2026. She is a conspicuous figure at all of the exclusive affairs given by the Four Hundred.\u201d The couple had two children, Charles Coudert Nast, and Natica Nast (later Warburg). Nast and his wife were estranged for many years before their 1925 divorce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

1907<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast left Collier\u2019s<\/em> to focus on the Home Pattern Company which he had organized in 1904. In September a newspaper headline declared Nast to be the \u201cHighest Salaried Young Man in the World.\u201d The accompanying article tracked the businessman\u2019s \u201crise from a job at a clerk\u2019s hire, $12 a week, to a position with a salary nearly that of the president of the United States.\u201d The writer asserted that \u201cMr. Nast is known to the publishing world as perhaps the greatest expert in the country on national advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"In<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

In 1909, after years of negotions, Nast acquired Vogue.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span>Cover art by G. Howard Hilder, Vogue,<\/em> June 24, 1909<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1909<\/strong><\/p>\n

After four years of negotiation with Turnure\u2019s estate, Nast acquired Vogue.<\/em> His name first appeared in the June 24th issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Best<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Natica Nast, the publisher\u2019s second child, modeling for Vogue.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed by Baron de Meyer, Vogue,<\/em> January 15, 1920<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1910<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although it was filled mainly with illustrations, Vogue<\/em> started crediting photographers. Nast biographer Caroline Seebohm credits the publisher not only as a patron of photographers, but a man who \u201cpersonally trained, directed, and disciplined [them] according to his personal vision and private standards,.\u201d Supporting her claim, she published a statement Horst P. Horst made decades later. He wrote: \u201cNo other publisher has ever demonstrated a courage comparable to the late Cond\u00e9 Nast. Photography owes him an incalculable debt. In the early days of Vogue<\/em> and Vanity Fair<\/em>, it was he who persuaded Baron de Meyer and Commander Edward Steichen literally to create fashion photography. . . . Indeed, there is not one significant contemporary name in photography that has not appeared on the pages of the Nast magazines. And until the day of his death Mr. Nast remained creatively restless, always foreseeing inevitable change long before anybody else, always demanding\u2014and getting\u2014new results from old artists, always seeking out young talent and giving it rich and unpredictable opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

1913<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast, whose writings were used in business school textbooks, published his theory of \u201cClass Publications\u201d in a trade journal. Seebohm credits Nast with the concept of special interest magazines. His argument\u2014which he put spectacularly into practice at Vogue<\/em>\u2014was quality over quantity. American society, the publisher wrote. \u201cdivides not only along the lines of wealth, education, and refinement, but classifies itself even more strongly along lines of interests. . . . And a \u2018class publication\u2019 is nothing more nor less than a publication that looks for its circulation only to those having in common a certain characteristic marked enough to group them into a class. That common characteristic may be almost anything: religion; a particular line of business; community of residence; common pursuit; or some common interest. When I say a class publication \u2018looks\u2019 to one of these classes for its circulation, I state it very mildly; as a matter of fact, the publisher, the editor, the advertising manager and circulation man must conspire not only to get all their readers from the one particular class to which the magazine is dedicated, hut rigorously to exclude all others.\u201d<\/p>\n

1914<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vanity Fair<\/em> debuted. Its editor Frank Crowninshield said its mission was \u201cFirst, to believe in the progress and promise of American life, and second, to chronicle that progress cheerfully, truthfully, and entertainingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

1916<\/strong><\/p>\n

British Vogue<\/em> was launched, followed by Paris Vogue<\/em> in 1920.<\/p>\n

1921<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast acquired a printing company and thirty-one and a half acres of land in Old Greenwich, Connecticut and started transforming it. According to a contemporary source, it was \u201cregarded as a model printing and booking establishment.\u201d Nast\u2019s daughter, Leslie Bonham Carter, remembers the press as being \u201cone of the great, great prides of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

1922<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Cond\u00e9 Nast Publications, Inc. was established this year the impact of the company on American culture was already recognized. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat<\/em> published \u201c5,000,000 New Homes Needed in America: Magazines Playing Big Part in Developing Household Art.\u201d In it, House & Garden<\/em> is mentioned as being \u201cowned and published by Cond\u00e9 Nast who is also the owner and publisher of Vogue<\/em> and Vanity Fair<\/em>\u2014making a group of magazines which are edited up to the intelligence of the most appreciative minds of the times. These magazines not only meet an existing need for wider information in regards to all the details of beautiful home-making, but create an interest in and capacity for achieving the finer type of homes, gardens and decoration as well as a more gracious cultivated existence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

1923<\/strong><\/p>\n

The French Government bestowed the Order of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor on Cond\u00e9 Nast in recognition of his \u201cencouragement of French culture.\u201d Writing for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat<\/em> in 1938, Olga Clark, its Paris correspondent wrote: \u201cIt is asserted in Paris, and not without justice, that after the war Cond\u00e9 Nast was an important factor in saving French \u2018couture,\u2019 or assisting in its re-establishment. . . . After the war Nast helped French \u2018couture\u2019 . . . by consistently putting French style ideas before the American and English publics in Vogue,<\/em> he influenced American and English buyers to come to France.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

1925<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast moved into a thirty-room penthouse at 1040 Park Avenue that has been described by The New York Times<\/em> not only as \u201ca nexus for cafe society when it was built,\u201d but the city\u2019s \u201cmost famous [penthouse] in its day, and remains a benchmark for architectural historians.\u201d Or, as \u201cPenthouse owners are the new aristocracy,\u201d remarked Dorthy Draper in a 1930 issue of Vogue.<\/em><\/p>\n

The apartment was decorated by Elsie de Wolfe (who became Lady Mendel and lived in Villa Trianon at Versailles). 1040 became the site of legendary celebrations. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that \u201cThe parties of Cond\u00e9 Nast rivaled in their way the fabled balls of the Nineties.\u201d The mix of society and the artistic communities was much commented on at the time, as in a 1928 piece that ran in The Plain Dealer, which read:<\/em> \u201cAt the Park Avenue ball of Cond\u00e9 Nast, the publisher, are to be found Mrs. Graham Fair Vanderbilt, society leader of the highest consequence; Miss Helen Morgan, dancer, whole night club has been raided for the usual reasons, and many artists, authors, critics, players, smart people of wealth, barons, princes, jazz specialists and celebrities of fad. Mr. Nast, high priest of feminine extravagances and luxurious living likes to mix them all up when he throws a party. They have a wonderful time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

After Nast\u2019s death in 1942, society hostess and columnist wrote: \u201cCond\u00e9\u2019s visiting list was the most elastic and expansive volume I know. He was a party conspirator with me many times during our long and close friendship. His penthouse was an ideal setting for the parties he gave. . . . Cond\u00e9 was the bridge for more beautiful unknown blondes to cross to careers of fame than I can remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

1927<\/strong><\/p>\n

The year that Cond\u00e9 Nast Publications went public, the publisher bought an estate in Sands Point, Long Island.<\/p>\n

1928<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast, 55, married Leslie Foster, the 21-year-old daughter of his friends, Albert Volney and Grace Foster of Lake Forest, Illinois. In a 1930 article describing her work as director of design at Contempora, a business connecting artists with manufacturers, Mrs. Nast is described as being \u201cVery pretty, young, very blond and wide-eyed.\u201d \u201cSocial life doesn\u2019t hold enough,\u201d she told the Brooklyn Eagle.<\/em> \u201cI prefer to spend my time doing something I can feel is really creative. Besides that, to live in New York and not have a job, is almost impossible. Life is such a forward going affair here. We must be doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

1929<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black Friday wiped out Cond\u00e9 Nast\u2019s fortune and his control of the company. The following year a Goldman Sachs banker became director of Cond\u00e9 Nast Publications.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Leslie<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Leslie Nast and her dog.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed for Vogue,<\/em> 1934<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

1930<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leslie Maud Nast (now Leslie Bonham Carter) was born. Vogue<\/em> editor and Nast favorite, Carmel Snow, was chosen to be her godmother.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Lady<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Lady Leslie Benson (the former Leslie Foster Nast) and Sir Rex Benson and.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1932<\/strong><\/p>\n

Foster Nast, having quietly divorced Nast (who was then desperately fighting to keep afloat), married Rex (Reginald) Benson, a polo-playing banker, war hero, diplomat, sometime head of British secret service in France, and a pal of Cole Porter. Nast\u2019s biographer Susan Roland wrote that Nast had seen the love triangle among Leslie, Benson, and himself \u201cas a perfect solution to their collective problems. As only someone who truly loves another can do, he set her free\u2014with his heartfelt blessings.\u201d And according to Edna Woolman Chase, who worked with Nast from 1909, his second wife\u2019s \u201caffection for Cond\u00e9 was real and lasted out his lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

1933<\/strong><\/p>\n

Through baker Leo d\u2019Erlanger, Nast came to a silent arrangement with editor and publisher, Lord Camrose (who, The Times<\/em> reported, began his journalistic career as a cub reporter at the age of fourteen). Camrose\u2019s loan allowed Nast to take a controlling stake in CNP, and regain editorial control of his magazines.<\/p>\n

1934<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast, The New York Times<\/em> would later report, \u201cwas voted by a jury of tailors one of ten of America\u2019s best-dressed men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Cond<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Cond\u00e9 Nast and his daughter Leslie.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue,<\/em> December 4, 1937<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1937<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nast was among those recognized by the New York League of Business and Professional Women for their \u201cliberal attitude toward women in business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Leslie<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Leslie Benson in Washington.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\n
\"A<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

A reception at the British Embassy in Washington when the Bensons were in residence.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

1941<\/strong><\/p>\n

With Nast\u2019s health deteriorating, Leslie Nast moves to Washington where her stepfather Lt. Col. Rex Benson had been stationed as military attach\u00e9 and her mother worked as vice chairman of British War Relief.<\/p>\n

1942<\/strong><\/p>\n

Death of Cond\u00e9 Nast. \u201cCond\u00e9 was the kindliest of men\u2014gentle, understanding, and a brilliant business mind. Obviously for a man to have produced several splendid magazines which even today are copied by other publishers, and will always serve as models\u2014particularly Vogue<\/em>\u2013of the best there was during the era of elegance, models to help us retain our sense of beauty, to be the promulgator of the more raffine touches to life\u2019s sometimes sordid pictures\u2026that, I submit, was no small thing,\u201d wrote Elsa Maxwell in memoriam. \u201cMr. Nast, like Aladdin, gave every woman, high and low, the blueprint to a dream with which they might escape grim reality and become Cinderellas overnight. . . . What Cond\u00e9 meant to New York, not only on the social scene but in every phase of public, professional or civic life, will be more and more appreciated as time goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n

And The Boston Globe<\/em> published a letter to the editor that read, in part, \u201cMr. Nast did more to inculcate in women the ideals and practicality of good taste in dressing than any other person, or all the fashion schools of the country put together. Mr. Nast was a pioneer. His watchword was simplicity, his constant warning reminded women of all graduations of income that \u2018the most expensive dress you buy is the dress you never wear.\u2019 . . . Always in the vanguard, he never overlooked the artfulness of the simple line and the absence of geegaws. He gave the woman of modest means the satisfaction of \u2018being in the know;\u2019 by presenting to her the photographs of the leading women of fashion and importance. The great strides in color photography and printing evinced in the magazines made history.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"\u201cMISS<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

\u201cMISS LESLIE NAST: Miss Nast is the daughter of the late Cond\u00e9 Nast. She lives in England with her mother, Mrs. Rex Benson. She was presented at Court and made her debut this year in London and is now in New York for the winter season.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue,<\/em> October 1, 1948<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\n
\"Henry<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Henry Channon, M.P. at home at 5 Belgravia Square in the dining room, described by Vogue in 1949 as being \u201ccopied by Jansen of Paris from a room by Cuvilles. Against its glimmer of silver and blue are Meissen china figures from the King of Saxony\u2019s collection, a porcelain stove that came, as did the parquet, from the Parr Palace in Vienna.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue,<\/em> 1943<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"The<\/span><\/div>\n
Illustration by Topolski, Vogue,<\/em> August 15, 1948<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1948<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leslie Nast graduated from Brearly. In June she made her debut in London. Vogue<\/em> wrote: \u201cThere was dancing in the famous Regency library of Mr. Chip Channon\u2019s [a conservative politician and diarist] beautiful house on Belgrave Square where Mrs. Rex Benson gave a dance for her debutante daughter, Leslie Nast. A green-and-white tent decorated with reeds and lit by candles was built out beyond the blue-and-silver dining room, a replica of a room in the Amalienburg Palace in Munich.\u201d In December she came out in Chicago at a party hosted by her maternal grandparents.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"An<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

An engagement photo of Lord St. Just (Peter George Grenfell) and Leslie Nast, 1949<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Mirrorpix \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Lord<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Lord and Lady St. Just, 1949. The bride wore a custom Bergdorf Goodman dress.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue,<\/em> July 1949<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Lelsie<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Lelsie Benson at her daughter\u2019s 1949 wedding.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue,<\/em> July 1949<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1949<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leslie Nast, age 18, married Lord St. Just (Peter George Gernfell), who she met three years prior at a country dance. (Once known as \u201cthe shyest peer,\u201d he started a television production company in 1954.) Of the wedding Vogue<\/em> reported that \u201cthere were two very young flower girls, and six bridesmaids in green organdie; the bride went up the aisle on the arm of her stepfather, Lieutenant Colonel Rex Benson. Her wedding dress, made for her in New York by Bergdorf Goodman, was of ivory satin with a pale ivory lace jacket: her tulle veil floated from a tiny arc of flowers; instead of the traditional bouquet, she carried a prayer book.\u201d The pair had a daughter, Laura Claire Grenfell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Leslie<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Leslie and Mark Bonham Carter in 1958.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Keystone \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1955<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following the dissolution of her marriage, Leslie Nast, the former Lady St. Just, married Mark Bonham Carter, then a 33-year-old working in publishing to whom she was introduced by her mother. (In 1943, as a POW in Italy, Bonham Carter executed a daring escape, scaling a wall, trekking through enemy territory, in order to rejoin the British army.) The grandson of the one-time Prime Minister Lord Asquith, Bonham Carter first threw his hat into the political ring in 1945. Unsuccessful, he studied at Oxford and Chicago University. Writing in 1959, The Bolton News<\/em>, commented that Bonham Carter\u2019s \u201cmarriage to Leslie Nast was a marriage of litterateurs, his bride being the daughter of the late Cond\u00e9 Nast, the distinguished American publisher who founded Vogue.<\/em>\u201d The couple had three daughters: the current Jane Bonham Carter, Virginia Bonham Carter (now Brand), and Eliza Bonham Carter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Mark<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Mark and Leslie Bonham Carter celebrate his 1958 win in the Torrington by-election, Devon.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Express \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1958<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark Bonham Carter became an MP after winning a seat for Torrington, Devon. \u201cFrom the standpoint of political attraction,\u201d wrote The New York Times,<\/em> \u201cMr. Bonham Carter has one other qualification that no one else in British politics can match. He can charm the voters.\u201d Four years later Leslie Bonham Carter would stand as a Liberal for Queens Gate in South Kensington.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Leslie<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Leslie Bonham Carter and Lady Violet Bonham Carter at a political assemble in 1963.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: PA Images \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

1959<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. and Mrs. Samuel I. Newhouse bought a majority stake in CNP.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/the-met-inaugurates-the-conde-m-nast-galleries-in-the-presence-of-the-publisher-s-daughter-leslie-bonham-carter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Runway The Met Inaugurates the Cond\u00e9 M. Nast Galleries in the Presence of the Publisher\u2019s Daughter Leslie Bonham Carter By Laird Borrelli-Persson November 17, 2025 Leslie Bonham Carter. Three of The Met\u2019s most visited exhibitions were organized by the Costume Institute. Soon, museum-goers will be able to relish fashion almost as soon as they enter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":702762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-702761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=702761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/702762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=702761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=702761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=702761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}