How New York rejected its leading socialite
PUSSSYKATT
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Less than a year ago, Julia Koch was at the epicenter of New York society. Tall
and beautiful, she loved fashion and knew how to entertain in style. Her life
was like the plot of a Dominick Dunne novel: the Midwest girl moves to New
York, marries a billionaire and looks set to become the queen of Manhattan.
Koch and her husband, the 58-year-old billionaire oil magnate David Koch
(pronounced 'coke''), seemed to be doing everything right. They even bought
Jackie O's glorious Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking the Metropolitan Museum.
After paying a reported $10 million, they hired the British society interior
designer David Mlinaric to refurbish it, for an additional $5.5 million, to
create what was assumed would be one of Manhattan's most glamorous salons.
Their rise to the top of the New York social world seemed unstoppable.
It all started in 1963, when Julia Flesher was born on a modest farm in Iowa.
At age 8, she moved with her family to Arkansas. While other young girls were
hanging out at the local diner, Julia would spend hours pouring over fashion
magazines from New York. After making her first trip to Manhattan, at age 18,
she never wanted to return to quiet, old Little Rock, former home to the
Clintons.
Shortly after graduating from the University of Central Arkansas, Julia worked
as an assistant to Adolfo, the clothes designer whose Upper East Side salon
catered to famous locals such as the department store heiress and socialite
Betsy Bloomingdale. For nine years, Julia toured the circuit, visiting Dallas,
Beverly Hills and even the White House, where she would fit Nancy Reagan in the
first lady's private dressing room. In January 1991, friends set up a blind
date for her with David Koch, a senior executive in the $30 billion family oil
company, Koch Industries, the second largest private company in America.
Following their first date, she recalled to the New York Times: 'Afterwards, we
shook hands and I said [to myself], 'I'm glad I met that man, because now I
know I never want to go out with him.' '' However, he later won her approval,
and the couple began a five-year courtship that ended in marriage three years
ago.
Koch appeared to be the ideal (MD+IT)fin-de-siecle (MD-IT)society wife. She was
soon asked to co-chair the 1997 costume gala at the Metropolitan Museum - the
apex of social charity work here. She also was featured in the New York Times
magazine and Vogue, and while the invitations poured in, top designers called
to schedule private visits.
It all seemed too perfect, a plot just crying out for a twist. And that came in
the guise of New York's snobbish society grandes dames. From the moment the
marriage was announced, it was viewed with suspicion. Koch had been a hugely
popular bachelor on the scene - the perfect single man so sought after by
hostesses. The parties at his five Southampton mansions on Long Island were
legendary: He always offered his guests a choice of six different champagnes -
and he was famous for employing 40 security guards just to turn away
gate-crashers. It didn't take long for Julia's rivals to get their claws in.
Gossip columnists began to whisper that she was failing to ingratiate herself
with the old-money society hostesses, known as the elite 400 - named after the
number of guests who could fit into the ballroom of the turn-of-the-century
socialite Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. They were apparently eating her alive.
None of them took her under their wing in the way that Pat Buckley, wife of the
influential conservative commentator William Buckley and past chairman of the
Met's costume gala, did for Donald Trump's sister-in-law Blaine. Buckley
complained that Julia failed to demonstrate any willingness for the tedious
behind-the-scenes charity work, the 'hard, hard slogging.'' The final straw
came at a benefit thrown by Buckley for the Reagans a few months ago. Julia,
while sitting at her host's table, talked to her dinner companion throughout
Buckley's speech.
Others made fun of her lowly background, citing the Miller girls, the three
daughters of duty-free magnate Robert Miller, as more promising material for
the upper echelons of New York establishment. Marie-Chantal Miller married
Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece; Alexandra married the son of Diane and Prince
Egon Von Furstenburg, while Pia wed a Getty.
Wealth didn't save Julia from being attacked in the columns of the New York
Times, either. Furious that she would not allow it to photograph her apartment,
the paper stormed that if Koch were 'truly intent on becoming a personality of
intelligence without snobbery,'' she should 'move beyond her isolated Upper
East Side world to the messier, riskier New York society beyond.''
Then, suddenly, to everyone's surprise, Julia Koch apparently dropped out of
the society she had so longed to be a part of, leaving her 14-room apartment
unfinished, and fled New York altogether. 'She has retreated to Florida.'' said
a friend. 'In Palm Beach - unlike in New York - a lot of money goes a long
way.''
'Julia thought it was all about having a lot of money, but it isn't'' said
another acquaintance. 'She didn't have the sophistication to carry it off, and
New York can be very cruel to people who set themselves up like that.''
Patrick McCarthy, the chairman of Fairchild Publications, who oversees the
lives of the rich and famous in W magazine and Women's Wear Daily (as well as
co-chairing the Met party with Koch and Vogue's editor, Anna Wintour), said new
money was still not accepted by New York's (MD+IT)ancien regime(MD-IT): 'The
Miller girls are related to royalty, and New York, like London, is still quite
stuffy.''
In the most palpable signal of her decision to evade the limelight, the Kochs'
annual New Year's Eve party in Aspen, Colo. - winter playground of the super
rich - was, as reported by The Post's Page Six, almost devoid of the A-list.
Once a glittering affair, famous for its free-flowing champagne, bountiful
buffets and at least 800 revelers, the guest list ran to little more than 200:
They were served portions of Thai food but little else. Goldie Hawn, Kevin
Costner and Donald and Ivana Trump, all staying in neighboring chalets, were
nowhere to be seen. Diana Ross, yawning on a sofa, left before midnight. Julia
was blamed for 'ruining'' the bash, while her husband was said to have lost his
touch by bowing to her. 'Julia's fingerprints were all over it,'' said one
disappointed guest.
However, Manhattan's snooty hostesses shouldn't breathe a sigh of relief quite
yet. Koch has just announced that she was unhappy with some of Mlinaric's work,
and she's taken on French interior decorator Alberto Pinto to redo the Onassis
apartment. Everyone's waiting to see if the Arkansas girl is preparing herself
for Round Two.