arella Agnelli is today best known as one of American author Truman Capote’s “Swans” – the coterie of New York socialites, ruled by the formidable fashion editor Babe Paley, that he befriended and immortalised in a scandalous piece known as (more recently adapted for television, starring Naomi Watts as Paley). The group were the height of 1960s style and beauty, and Agnelli was perhaps the most elegant of them all. Capote, as reported by his friend Katherine Graham, once said that if Paley and Agnelli “were both in Tiffany’s window, Marella would be more expensive”.
