RIP Zelda Kaplan

• Socialite Keels Over in the Middle of a Fashion Show in the Front Row

Zelda Kaplan, the hard-partying 95-year-old socialite who has been a fixture of the New York scene since the '60s, collapsed right in the middle of the Joanna Mastroianni fashion show at Lincoln Center yesterday, just as the second model walked past her. She was later pronounced dead. This is the first time a fashion show has literally been deadly boring.

Kaplan was removed by security (image below) and the show kept going on. She was seated next to nearly immortal gossip dowager Cindy Adams, and we're lucky that the grim reaper didn't decide to go two-for-one at fashion week. Kaplan was taken to the hospital but passed due to natural causes.

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She was well-known for her distinctive African look (as well as her charitable ventures on the continent) as well as continuing to go to fashion shows and hit social events long after most people would have put on their comfortable shoes and stayed at home watching reruns of Matlockon the Hallmark Channel. Legend goes that Kaplan was a housewife in New Jersey when she got sick of the married life and moved to Manhattan so she could attend every club opening, art party, and fashion soiree that she could—and there must have been thousands over her long career. For Kaplan, it seems like there was no other way she was going to go then while out on the town.

[Top images via Getty, secondary image via AP]

Source: Gawker