Nancy Talbot was the Doyenne of American mail-order fashion. Talbot, who died on Aug. 30 at 89 of complications from Alzheimer's disease, founded the eponymous clothing store and catalog business with her husband Rudolf in 1947. Together they created a style she described as "smart but not faddy, fashionable but not funky, chic and understated."
Raised in Chicago, Talbot attended Radcliffe College before joining the Red Cross in 1941. She met her husband in France during World War II, and they took over his father's Hingham, Mass., clothing store in 1945. Two years later, they renamed the store Talbots. Its red...
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