INSPIRED BY | MASTERS & MUSES | WORLD OF CABANA

In their distinct ways, history's great hosts remind us that successful hosting is not about spectacle; it is about stewardship of beauty, conversation, culture, and memory. To mark Cabana's new homeware collection, we are looking back on the lives of four inspirational hostesses whose style directly inspired the collection. To reflect on their legacy is to recognize that true elegance does not lie in being seen, but in how exquisitely one sees, and welcomes, others.

BY TEAM CABANA | MASTERS & MUSES | 10 MARCH 2026

To host, in the grand tradition of high society, is to choreograph an atmosphere. Across centuries, the salonnières of Paris, the grande dames of Newport, and the contessas of Rome understood that a gathering was never merely social: it was cultural architecture and even soft power. Within drawing rooms and on candlelit terraces, reputations were made. True hostesses did much more than entertain and decorate; they set tone, tempo, and taste.

In the 20th century, a rarefied quartet of hostesses — Gloria Vanderbilt, Jackie Onassis, Marella Agnelli and Babe Palet — embodied this alchemy, and each has become enduringly influential. So much so that Cabana's newest homewares collection, The Hosting Collection, is directly inspired by them. Read on to learn more about four women who mastered the art of hosting. 

Gloria Vanderbilt: The Bohemian Heiress 

Gloria Vanderbilt, photographed by Toni Frissell.

Gloria Vanderbilt embodied romantic reinvention. Born into one of America’s most influential families—the Vanderbilt name synonymous with American industrial wealth—she endured a childhood of public custody battles before emerging as a painter, designer, writer, and fashion pioneer. Yet beyond Vanderbilt's artistic and entrepreneurial achievements, her greatest canvas may have been the world she created at home.

Her houses, whether in Manhattan, Southampton, or abroad, were layered with pattern and memory. Walls blushed in pink or washed in turquoise, furniture upholstered in florals, and surfaces crowded with objects, photographs, and flowers from her own garden. Gloria believed that rooms should reflect emotion rather than convention. 

Gloria Vanderbilt, 1966, photographed by Toni Frissell

As a hostess, she gathered eccentrics and intellectuals, fashion luminaries and poets. Unlike the rigid seating charts of uptown society, she preferred an organic mingling; the mood was creative, slightly unruly, and deeply human. Her personal style mirrored this sensibility – lace blouses, long skirts, ballet flats, an insouciant mane of hair – and she wore her heritage lightly, transforming the burden of old money into a narrative of self-expression. She proved that glamour could coexist with vulnerability, that elegance need not be austere.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: The Diplomat of Elegance 

Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy, an a porch with their children in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. © Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis elevated hosting to a matter of statecraft. As First Lady, she redefined the White House as both a political residence and cultural salon. With scholarly precision and European sensitivity, she restored its historical interiors, then populated them with poets, musicians, Nobel laureates, and visiting heads of state. Her dinners were symbolic: American silver, candlelit tables, and menus that nodded to French refinement.

Her taste was informed by her years in Paris and her reverence for history; she believed beauty communicated seriousness. Even in her private life, at her Georgetown dinners or later on the island of Skorpios and in her Fifth Avenue apartment, she maintained an atmosphere of cultivated discretion. Guests often remarked on her ability to listen intently, to draw out the shy, and to pivot conversations away from discord.

After tragedy shadowed her life, she retained an aura of composure and mystique, and continued to make an impact by fusing personal style with intellect, and hospitality with diplomacy. She embodied soft power, making glamour purposeful and demonstrating that a well-set table could subtly reshape a nation’s cultural identity. 

Marella Agnelli: The Last Contessa

Marella Agnelli, photographed by Erwin Blumenfeld © The Last Swan

Tall, aristocratic, and luminously self-possessed, Marella Agnelli brought a distinctly European grandeur to the art of hosting. Born Princess Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto and later wife to Fiat magnate Gianni Agnelli, she moved between Rome, Turin, New York, and Marrakech, creating interiors that blended Old World patina with modern audacity.

Working with designers like Renzo Mongiardino, Marella embraced saturated hues—saffron yellows, lapis blues, lacquered reds—set against classical architecture. Silk-lined walls, chinoiserie panels, and abundant flowers from her own gardens created an atmosphere that was both theatrical and intimate. At Villar Perosa or in her Park Avenue apartment, guests encountered cultivated drama, not ostentation.

Marella and Luciana Pignatelli, on the deck of Agnelli's Chris-Craft, photographed by Henry Clarke in 1962 © The Last Swan

Marella herself was a style icon: photographed by Richard Avedon, dressed by Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent. She possessed the rare ability to appear both aloof and warmly attentive.

Her gatherings mixed industrial titans with artists and royalty, reflecting a Europe in transition. Yet tradition anchored her. She understood lineage, ritual, and the emotional power of place, and preserved the aristocratic ideal of hospitality while modernizing its aesthetic. 

Babe Paley: The Swan in the Drawing Room

Naomi Watts as Babe Paley © FX's FEUD Capote Vs. The Swans

Few women have so perfectly embodied the golden age of American society as Barbara “Babe” Paley. A former fashion editor at Vogue, who then married CBS founder William S. Paley, she possessed an almost preternatural understanding of visual harmony. Truman Capote, who immortalized her among his “Swans,” reportedly considered her the most beautiful woman in the world—not merely for her features, but for the total composition she presented.

As a hostess, Babe was meticulous yet seemingly effortless. Her Park Avenue apartment, designed with Billy Baldwin, became a masterclass in proportion and polish: chintz balanced with lacquer, porcelain lamps casting a flattering glow, ashtrays placed just so. She understood entertaining was theater, and directed with a light hand. Guests were curated as carefully as flowers: European aristocrats beside Manhattan editors, artists alongside financiers.

She favored Givenchy and Valentino, pearls layered over impeccable tailoring, and hair sculpted into a glossy helmet that became her signature. Yet there was warmth beneath the sheen. At her famed Long Island gatherings, she cultivated intimacy within grandeur, making each guest feel chosen. Babe Paley distilled American postwar glamour into a language of taste that still resonates today: gracious, controlled, and impossibly chic.

Babe Paley, seen top right, attending the First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's (JBK) Tea for the Committee for White House Paintings © Abbie Rowe. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston