Carole Radziwill only came across my consciousness on
The Real Housewives of New York City. I love her style! Why had I not heard of her before?
Smart, styley and whip-smart, this Emmy-award winning journalist is like a hybrid of Carine Roitfeld and Carrie Bradshaw. (2 fun facts - she and SJP were both models for Jordache. And Carole grew up in Suffern - the location of Carrie Bradshaw's "suffering in Suffern" episode when visiting Aidan's country cottage in Season 4, Episode 9 - Sex and the Country).
"I grew up in a working class town. I moved to the city. I found my way into the halls of the most prestigious place in journalism, traveled the world, and fashioned a nice little career for myself. In one way, nothing that’s happened in my life has made sense and in another way, all of it has. I was a shy girl. I wasn’t the valedictorian, I wasn’t the beauty queen. There is nothing I can point to growing up that would have groomed me for any of this. But I observed and I studied, and most importantly I took chances when they were offered to me. I followed Eleanor Roosevelt's advice – do one thing that scares you each day." Caroleradziwill.com
Among her accomplishments she has 3 best-selling books, has written for Glamour magazine, was stationed in Israel during the Gulf War, worked for ABC and 20/20, produced on land mines in Cambodia, won a George Foster Peabody Awards - and and has dated George Clooney.
She was married to the late Anthony Radziwill, son of Prince Stanislas Radziwill of Poland by his wife, Lee Bouvier, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. So she is actually a Princess.
"How did a girl from Suffern meet a man with royal lineage going back four hundred years? I’ll tell you how - we got assigned to the same story. A bloody murder, of all things. The Menendez brothers, remember them? Lyle and Erik Menendez were two good-looking rich kids who gunned their parents down in their Beverly Hills living room. Anthony Radziwill was a producer on the story, and I was sent to work on the team. I used to get asked all the time, “How did you and Anthony meet?” People were puzzled. Maybe they thought princes lived in castles and ordered in. Some do. Others have to work. And that’s where I met Anthony – at work. So much for fairy tales. After we’d dated a few years, we moved in together – to a one bedroom apartment on 78th Street and I learned that Anthony liked piles of things here and there and I liked things, well, neater. He liked tomatoes in his salads, and I picked mine out. He woke up at dawn and was at the gym by 7am and liked to joke that I got up at the crack of noon. He was an early bird, I was a late worm and it worked. We were so different in some ways and in other ways so much alike." Caroleradziwill.com
Anthony sadly passed away from cancer at 40. Three weeks later their close friends John Kennedy Jr (Anthony's cousin) and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy died tragically, in a plane crash.
"I had a hard time after that. I was aimless, I drifted. I tried to figure it out. I was a journalist so, of course, I wanted answers. I wanted to make sense of it. I left ABC and moved into a sublet in the East Village. I lived there for nearly a year. It was a lost time. I eventually started to write about all of these things, and this became my first book “What Remains” It’s not the only story of my life, but it was a significant one. As I wrote in my book, after the losses of that summer, it felt as though the curtain had come down, the guests had gone home and I was alone on an empty stage." Caroleradziwill.com
Rock chick cool, she is 52 and looks 35, naturally tiny and has the best wardrobe without looking like mutton dressed as lamb, my total style icon! I love her interior style too, her
SoHo apartment is fabulous (she uses her kitchen as an office!) I was very impressed with her couch, upholstered in
Scalamandre's Le Tigre fabric.
"I’ve always followed my instinct - the feeling you have when something intangible is nudging you in one direction or another – and it’s as close as I come to a higher power. Here’s what I believe: Say Yes to what the universe puts in front of you, even when there’s no knowing how it will work out. Listen to your intuition with nothing less than awe. Don’t listen to those who judge you, quietly or not. Don’t listen to doubting whispers or negative self-talk, Who do you think you are? You’re a girl (or boy) with a dream, like me. So … Happily ever after? How comfortable is a glass shoe, really? I’ll let you know how it all turns out. As they say in publishing, TK. (more to come)" Caroleradziwill.com
I love Carole's style because it is chic, effortless and involves classic staples without looking boring, with a rock chick edge. As a fellow jeans girl with a love of blazers, black lace, fitted T. shirts, LBDs and leather, I can get on board with her style philosophy.
“Because I don’t have an office job I don’t have that kind of wardrobe, but I still like to have a uniform. It used to be always like a great pair of jeans, boots, t-shirt and a sweater, but now I have substituted jeans with leather pants because I think they are making so many great kinds of leather pants. That’s my go-to thing with a gray sweater or blazer, I think it is a little more polished than jeans, but at the end of the day, I’m a jeans girl. I also like long skirts in the day with boots and short skirts at night. The key is just wear whatever you feel beautiful in.” Brit.co
"My body doesn't change too much. I'm the same exact weight as I was in eleventh grade of high school. Even if I eat a lot, I don't gain weight. And if I don't eat, I don't lose weight. It's just flat. But I hate all that skinny shaming that goes on: 'You're too skinny, eat a burger!'. You would never say that to someone who is ten pounds overweight ever. I'm not starving myself. I'm just naturally thin. This is who I am. This is what I eat. Ten cheeseburgers or a salad, I stay the same weight. I like to say that God gave me a good metabolism and a nice ass, but again, there's a whole bunch of other issues, so it all evens out." Elle.com.
Signature scent -"It's original Egyptian musk oil. I used to get it from the men in the subway who sell the incense, but now those guys have all been run out of town. For a long time I was despondent because I didn't know where to get it. But then I was walking along Third Avenue right by the Ace Hotel, and found it at one of the perfumeries. I get it by the medicine jar and I just pour it into this little one. It's very unisex, but feminine."
Love Heals, NYC 2015
Check out Carole's Instagram for loads of cool pics & looks
