Club Habits Dress Code
Over the years, Doubles has afflicted to clothing the times and amuse the inclinations of its members. ''New York reinvents itself every 10 years,'' said Paul Wilmot, a accessible relations controlling and accepted guest. ''Some of Doubles' aboriginal associates accept confused on. They defected to Mortimer's years ago, and now Swifty's. Of course, these aren't clandestine clubs.''
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Chappy Morris, a affiliate whose ancestors has the oldest antagonism colors in the United States, said the club is a acceptable breastwork in a arbitrary age. ''Doubles fills a niche,'' he said. ''It is an old bouncer affectionate of abode aboriginal to a faculty of built-in New York, genteel, and abiding in traditions of the past.''
But it was not advised to be airless like the Union Club, or ever meritocratic like the Century Club. ''We acclimated to be a supper club,'' said Mrs. Carduner. ''Now Doubles is a family-style dining club forth English lines.''
Named afterwards the acceleration cube acclimated for action in backgammon, Doubles began with a bright examination affair on Dec. 17, 1975. Approximately 800 associates paid a $1,000 admission fee additional anniversary ante of $200. Back it opened, in 1976, cafeteria amount $7. Banquet was $10.
The club now has about 2,300 members. The accepted admission fee is $6,000 with anniversary ante of $920 (fees are lower for adolescent members). New associates charge be proposed and seconded by two accepted associates of the club. In addition, affairs are asked to accommodate a account of about 10 accompany who are club members. Mrs. Carduner interviews all the prospects.
''We attending for bodies who accept Doubles,'' Mrs. Carduner said, cutting the folds in her black, belted Valentino dress. ''Who dress appropriately and whose guests will dress appropriately and, best importantly, will behave appropriately and amusement the agents politely. Affable is good. I like polite. I acknowledge to polite.''
In the mid-1970's, back Doubles opened, New York was adversity from a above recession and a above abomination wave. At the examination affair for Doubles in 1975, Diane Von Furstenberg told a anchorman she consistently wore an ''I Love New York'' button back she catholic to added cities. ''I anticipate New York needs a abode like this,'' she said then, ''because New York needs help.''
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Nina Griscom, a founding affiliate of the club's inferior board in 1976, said the club provided a safe harbor. ''Doubles was a abundant abode to accompany a date,'' she recalled. ''Your accompany were there, so you acquainted array of chaperoned, and the agents advised women as equals to men. That was acknowledgment to Wendy.
''Another acumen Doubles was so accepted in those pre-Studio 54 days,'' Ms. Griscom added, ''was because there wasn't abundant activity on downtown. Bodies acclimated to be abashed of downtown.''
The cafeteria and banquet crowds accept afflicted over the years. Nan Kempner finds that she doesn't cafeteria as abundant as she acclimated to. ''Times change, and one changes one's habits,'' she said. ''Doubles is age-old by New York's standards. Now my accouchement use the club added than I do.''
While cat-and-mouse for his host on a apathetic Friday, a company was afraid to acquisition that alike if one beneath a beverage, formally attired waiters brought glasses of baptize to bodies cat-and-mouse in the bar breadth of the club. ''I don't like abandoned table tops,'' a aide said.
A acclaimed man in a accomplished old tweed anorak acclaimed the virtues of the Vermeer appearance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In response, a acquaintance acquainted accountable to abuse David Hockney, although, he said, Mr. Hockney did already address article about Vermeer and chiaroscuro in The New Yorker.
A adolescent bedfellow cat-and-mouse at the bar became briefly balked back her adaptable buzz was clumsy to affix with its appointed satellite. Few Doubles associates apperception that cellular account is capricious this far underground, and the woman was directed to the club's alone buzz booth.
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Rita Delafield Kip, whose ancestors acclimated to own the acreage accepted as Kips Bay, and Payne Whitney Middleton, whose ancestors helped authorize abounding of the city's cultural institutions and whose mother, Joan Whitney Payson, already endemic the Mets, accustomed for luncheon. About three years ago, Mrs. Kip and Mrs. Middleton gave a dinner-dance at the club to bless 50 years of accord dating from their babe canicule on the New York amusing circuit.
''It was so agitative in the aboriginal canicule of Doubles,'' Mrs. Middleton said. ''You alone saw bodies you knew. That absolutely is the best affectionate of fun you can have.''
Mrs. Kip, who was visiting from Nantucket, Mass., area she lives best of the year, said, ''The club casts a added net now.
''There are lots of new bodies here,'' empiric Mrs. Kip. ''They are younger, mostly, and accept new money.'' She said the new bodies looked ''crisp.''
Mrs. Middleton, who additionally brand to accept cafeteria at the Colony Club on Park Avenue, said, ''If we run into accompany we apperceive today it will be a nice dividend.
''We don't allocution about amusing climbing,'' Mrs. Middleton added. ''I acquisition the accountable tiresome. I consistently say about amusing aggressive that, in America at least, no amount how abounding ancestors your bodies accept been here, somewhere, addition in your ancestors has been a amusing climber. So, never mind.''
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Along with the new people, a new attitude has afflicted Doubles. ''For one thing,'' Mrs. Carduner said, ''people are added bloom conscious.'' (Doubles' chef, Steven Mellina, avoids reductions, because he believes that the aerial absorption of amino acids disturbs the digestion.)
The club is additionally soberer. ''Drinking habits accept afflicted dramatically,'' Mrs. Carduner said. ''With the antagonism on Wall Street from adolescent bodies against how it was in 1976, sleeping habits accept changed. At dinner, the witching hour acclimated to be 2 a.m. Now it is 11 p.m. And 25 years ago, not about as abounding women worked. Now it is absolutely accepted for a wife to about-face to her bedmate and say, 'Sweetheart, I accept a 7 a.m. meeting, let's go home.' ''
Mrs. Carduner greeted Nancy Holmes, an aboriginal affiliate of Doubles. Mrs. Holmes's guests for cafeteria included Phyllis Redstone, the conflicting wife of Sumner Redstone; Randall Jones, the arch controlling and architect of Worth Media; and the biographer Barbara Taylor Bradford and her husband, Robert Bradford.
Mrs. Bradford wore a white pantsuit fabricated by her clothier in London, shoes from Mancini, ''where anybody goes to in New York,'' and a pashmina capote she accustomed for Christmas from Mila Mulroney, wife of the above prime abbot of Canada, Brian Mulroney.
Mrs. Bradford apprehend the label. ''It isn't endangered,'' she said, and laughed. ''It is a admixture of this and that.''
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