The world of fashion is in mourning after Zelda Kaplan, 95, died after fainting in her front-row seat at a fashion show yesterday. The drama and spectacle surrounding her death almost seems to befit the New York style icon that she was right up to her final breath. Ms Kaplan was known for taking the nocturnal nature of the city to heart, and was regularly seen closing down popular nightclubs like Bungalow 8 with socialites nearly a quarter her age.
She was instantly recognizable with her trademark oversized glasses, distinctive bold prints and ever-present matching hat.
Ms Kaplan was wearing a variation of her self-styled ‘uniform’ when she attended the Joanna Mastroianni fashion show at Lincoln Center on Wednesday.
She gainfully posed for photographers while she waited in the front row before the show started, and showed no sign of the trouble that was just minutes away.
Witnesses saw her ‘slump forward’ shortly after the show started and she was escorted out of her seat by security guards.
Emergency medical technicians performed CPR on Ms Kaplan before she was transported to hospital and pronounced dead.
An IMG spokesman said: ‘Emergency medical care was immediately supplied by a licensed first responder who is on our security staff, and she was taken by ambulance to Roosevelt Hospital.’
‘I’m a “Citizen of the World”… I’ve spent spent half my life relaxing and the other half crusading’
According to WWD, Ms Kaplan’s husband, Gideon Lewin, had been sitting next to her in the front row seats. He alerted security and said that his wife had never seen a doctor in her lifetime.
Her cause of death has not been released.
