Years active: 1950-1960.
Known for: Fashion editor at Vogue, married the founder of CBS.
Net worth: $500 million.
Opulence came second-nature to Babe Paley, who became the epitome of classy style during the fifties and sixties, but she wasn’t the only one of the family who caught the camera eye. She and her two sisters were dubbed the “fabulous Cushing sisters.”
Their father was a well-respected and well-earning professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Yale. Babe’s glamour and style led her to marry twice. The first to oil heir Stanley Grafton, and the second time to CBS founder William Paley.
Pat Buckley
Years active: 1948-2007.
Known for: Charity work, wife of William F. Buckley.
Net worth: $100 million.
While Patricia Buckley might not have been a famous actress or model, her life was still quite charmed. She not only inherited a large fortune from her father – Austin Cotterell Taylor, a lumber and mining magnate – but she also ended up marrying William F. Buckley, the brother of her college roommate.
Pat and her husband, an intellectual and author, split their time between Stanford and Manhattan, but also holidayed in places like Sweden and entertained people like Ted Kennedy. Pat was quite the style icon and entered the International Best-Dressed Hall of Fame in 1975.
Nan Kempner
Years active: 1950-1980.
Known for: Philanthropy, contributing editor for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, consultant for Tiffany & Co.
Net worth: $102 million.
While Nan's family was rich, Mr. Kempner was a wise, harsh, father, telling his daughter: “You'll never make it on your face, so you better be interesting.” Nan took the advice to heart and began writing and editing, moving to New York with her husband, a banker named Carl M. Loeb.
She rose to prominence in the fifties and soon became a bigger name than even she expected – and ended up modeling a little, even. Her couture clothing collection caught plenty of eyes, and she became part of the fashion industry for good with her writing and editing skills. Nan passed away in 2005 at the age of seventy-four.
Daisy Fellowes
Years active: 1910-1920.
Known for: Editor of Harper's Bazaar, heir to Singer sewing machine fortune.
Net worth: $200 million.
Daisy Fellowes struck it rich in more ways than one. Not only was she a classic beauty, but as the only child of Isabelle-Blanche Singer, she inherited the huge Singer family fortune. By the time Daisy was twenty years old, she was married to a prince, who would sadly pass away during World War I.
During the 1920s, Daisy was seen as a daring and fashionable It Girl, set the stage for the flapper fashion craze, and even had her eye on marrying Winston Churchill – but ended up settling for his cousin Reginald.
Diane von Furstenberg
Years active: 1970-present.
Known for: Fashion designer, marrying into German royalty.
Net worth: $1.2 billion.
Diane had it made: she married her college sweetheart Prince Egon von Furstenberg and became part of the German royal family (such as it is), but before long she realized she wanted a career of her own and jumped into the fashion world only a year after getting married.
Thanks to her newfound wealth and a pretty good amount of talent, von Furstenberg is now one of the most famous in the world, and its high-profile devotees include Victoria Beckham and Michelle Williams.