Larry Kuzniewski / Color Retouching by Charlie Reynolds
You know how it is with old friends. Even if you haven’t seen each other for years, or even decades, when you finally see each other again, you can just pick up where you left off.
That’s exactly what happened when Pat Kerr Tigrett and I spent quality time together again for the first time in nearly three decades. The last major article Memphis magazine published about Pat was in May 1989, when we featured her and her husband John’s spectacular new Waterford Plaza penthouse on the cover. Earlier, I had written a cover story (September 1983) when Pat was merely three years into her couture fashion business and basking in the glow of her first spectacularly successful New York fashion show at the Plaza Hotel.
More than 30 years of jam-packed activity have gone by since. Perhaps we at Memphis didn’t feel the need to rehash events that were exhaustively covered by myriad other news outlets, both local and national. Perhaps we felt we sort of were staying in touch, because she has been a perennial fixture in our annual “Who’s Who in Memphis.” But then again, perhaps, we’ve been simply missing the boat. By way of making amends, I traveled again last month to her Waterford Plaza penthouse, where this whirlwind force-of-nature seems as energetic and engaged as always, but these days also in possession of a measure of serenity as she reflects upon her remarkable career.
Tigrett’s familiar riverfront home seems very much unchanged, featuring many of the same mementos, photos, and art from nearly 30 years ago. But there are more than a few new items that deserve note. Wall-sized LeRoy Neiman paintings of Elvis superimposed on sheet music reflect her passion for Memphis music and her support of music-related ventures here. A bright blue-lacquered grand piano holds a dramatic spot in the living room; if you look carefully, there are Sharpie markings scrawled near the keyboard. During one of Pat’s legendary parties, Soul Men Isaac Hayes and David Porter signed Pat’s piano. Tragedy was averted the next morning, when she narrowly prevented her zealous and horrified Brazilian housekeeper from scrubbing off the priceless autographs. These are the kinds of tales that have filled Tigrett’s charmed and charming life, made all the more engaging by the way she tosses them off so lightly.
One other thing that seems not to have changed since she moved downtown is Tigrett herself. Glamour personified, she appears untouched by the years, sporting impeccably lined cornflower blue eyes, wavy chestnut hair falling naturally to her shoulders, expressive and perfectly manicured hands, and a huge smile. She bursts into the room in a casual outfit of black top and leggings, accented by fringed ankle boots and a tasseled lime-green scarf. While a lady never tells her age — and others should never ask — a little sleuthing around significant dates puts Pat well into her seventh decade — a fact that no one meeting her would ever believe.
If you’re new to town, you may well be wondering just who this Pat Tigrett really is, and why she’s on the cover of this magazine. Here’s why:
She’s a wildly successful and talented designer of couture evening and wedding gowns that feature the antique lace she’s been collecting nearly all her life.
She’s a tireless Memphis civic booster who’s been the mastermind behind some of the city’s splashiest events of recent history, including the lighting of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge in 1986 and the “Big Dig” groundbreaking ceremony for The Pyramid in 1989.
She’s the creator of some of Memphis’ most impressive public celebrations — the Blues Ball (celebrating Memphis music), the Moonshine Ball (celebrating “great things happening in Memphis”), the Jingle Bell Ball for children — all of which have raised money for children’s charities and Memphis music and musicians.
She’s a philanthropist whose board memberships include St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, ALSAC, Memphis in May, the Memphis and Shelby County Film and Television Commission, Leadership Memphis, and the University of Memphis, among many others.
Most importantly, she’s the wife of the late John Burton Tigrett and mother of their son, Kerr. A fascinating Jackson, Tennessee, native, John Tigrett became a prominent international business figure, often partnering with magnates like Armand Hammer and Sir James Goldsmith. An inventor at heart, he patented the net baby playpen, among many others; his son from his first marriage, Isaac, founded the Hard Rock Café and the House of Blues.
The details on this list, however, do not touch upon what has been Pat’s true genius, namely her innate ability to create synergy, collaboration, and excitement in everything she does.
“Always in groups of celebrities,” Pat recalls, “I was the ‘fun person.’ I love mischief.” She has produced parties and public events on a scale never before seen in Memphis, frequently including her many celebrity friends. Her life’s motto could well be “Make Sure to Have Fun While Doing Good.”
For example, in lighting the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, instead of merely soliciting large corporate sponsorships, she “sold” the lights stretching across the arches bulb by bulb, so that individual Memphians would have literal ownership in the endeavor. She even cajoled then-school Superintendent Willie W. Herenton into allowing her to raise pennies from the schoolchildren to buy their own light, and to hold a poster-drawing contest within the schools. The whole city turned out for the “Ol’ Man River Gets Lit” festival when the lights were set ablaze for the first time.
In 1989, Tigrett tented the interior of the ballroom at The Peabody, decorated it elaborately, and held The Nutcracker Ball on a Saturday night to benefit Ballet Memphis. To get the most bang for the buck, she kept the decorations intact, and then held the first Jingle Bell Ball — separate, back-to-back children’s parties for three different age divisions — the next afternoon. Her annual Jingle Bell Balls have been known to draw as many as 6,000 children.
Her Blues Balls always pulled together disparate groups of partygoers, utilizing her signature stratagem of the “Host Committee.” Tigrett enlists crowds of friends as co-hosts, whose names are listed on the huge, origami-like invitations she designs, ensuring that a large swath of supporters will come to the event and have an investment in its success. She does much the same for her other events; her fashion shows always double as fundraisers for worthy causes. “Pat operates like a butterfly — always flitting from idea to idea,” explains her younger sister, Jana, for many years her business manager.
Pat Tigrett has had no end of professional successes, but underlying all her achievements is the strength she long derived from her relationship with her late husband, John. She uses the word “hilarious” to describe their courtship in 1973.
“I was dating a guy and I told John, ‘I am so tied up, there is not the slightest chance. Plus, you’re the age of my father.’” He persisted, flying to New York when he knew she’d be there, and coaxed her into meeting him for a drink, on her way to another engagement. “I ran in and had a couple of sips of champagne, and then I got up to leave,” she remembers. “And he says, ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ And I say, ‘Well, we are not going to do anything. I’m gone.’”
She wasn’t gone for long. John Tigrett persevered and proposed on the third date; six months later they were married.
“He was such a gentleman and a great guy, and the world’s greatest negotiator. There was no way you could win if John Tigrett set his mind on something. One of the really lovely things about him — he was so confident. Honestly, God is scary smart, because He knows who to put together.”
After they married, Pat and John lived in London, where she continued her lace collecting in earnest. Before long, she began designing her signature dresses, garnering positive attention in the rarified atmosphere they inhabited as they traveled the world. After their son Kerr was born in 1977, however, the family started spending more time in Memphis.
John’s death may well be the defining event of Pat’s past 20 years.
Anyone who ever saw Pat and John together recognized the warmth and tenderness they had for each other. He doted upon her, and she returned the affection. They teased, bantered, and lifted each other up. Today, almost 20 years after his passing, she still gets wistful as she tells the story of his passing.
In the spring of 1999, despite a long and serious illness — he was in and out of the Mayo Clinic — John still traveled regularly. On May 18th he was in Washington, D.C., with his son Kerr, then attending the University of Virginia, along with FedEx founder Fred Smith and his son, Richard, also a student at UVA. The two families were very close.
“We were on the phone all the time to each other when we weren’t with each other, and [that day] he hadn’t called,” Pat recalls. “So I kept calling.
“It’s funny how life knows what’s getting ready to happen. About noon the phone rang and it was Diane [Smith], and she said, ‘Oh, you’re home,’ and hung up. And in about two seconds she arrived at my door. Fred had called her to come over to me. She said, ‘You have to sit down,’ and I looked at her and she burst into tears, and I asked, ‘Is it that John’s gone?’ She said yes, so that was the beginning.”
John was buried on their family farm in Savannah with only Pat’s family and the Smith family in attendance, and with Kerr delivering the eulogy. Days later, a much larger sendoff was held at the Orpheum for a larger-than-life man. Al Gore sent a videotaped message, Fred Smith spoke, and Isaac Hayes sang a verse from “So Glad You Were Born,” a Christmas carol John had once commissioned as a gift for Pat.
Shortly thereafter, Pat and Kerr decamped for London, where Kerr took a job in a communications business owned by a friend, Matthew Freud. Pat returned shortly to Memphis.
“I was really lost,” she says. “I was just devastated — we had been married almost 26 years. Kerr was in London, John was gone, and I was suddenly 100 percent alone. It was an interesting adjustment for me, and I literally traveled all the time. I kept myself really busy. I painted, I traveled, I read, for two years. It was a period that I almost don’t remember.
“After those two years, I started back to what I had been doing — the collecting, the fashion shows, and the creative part of me just roared again. You just have to ‘jerk yourself up by the bootstraps,’ as my family would say, and keep on going. So that’s what I did.”
Pat has continued her passion for collecting — and sharing — all manner of British Royal clothing and memorabilia, from Queen Victoria’s knickers to a silver bowl that once belonged to Lillie Langtry, one of King Edward’s mistresses. She owns a trove of items that belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and architectural artifacts that came out of Queen Elizabeth’s mother’s home.
“I really do have amazing things that are historic,” she says, “and I’ve got to decide what I’m going to do with them all.”
Perhaps the crown jewels of her collection are four of Princess Diana’s gowns, which she bought at the auction Prince William encouraged his mother to have in 1997 to raise money for charity. Since the Princess’ death, the dresses have taken on more significance, and Pat has been loaning them for exhibits — first at the Tennessee State Museum, and now at Kensington Palace in London. “What I’m doing with Diana’s gowns,” she says, “is to try to help children — to honor Diana’s legacy. This is what I think I’m meant to do.”
Pat Tigrett has continued designing, working out of her Memphis penthouse atelier, receiving her mostly out-of-town clients for consultations and fittings. But her role as a designer now takes a backseat to her relatively new role as adoring (and adored) grandmother. Her son Kerr and his wife Melanie, who moved to Nashville two years ago, have two daughters, ages 7 and 2, along with Melanie’s 16-year-old son. Pat will race up I-40 at the drop of a hat just to see what the crew is up to. The 7-year-old, who’s named for Pat’s late mother Margaret, shares many characteristics with her grandmom. “She and I really communicate,” says Pat. “She’s creative and lives in her own world.”
Music is another passion of Pat’s, as it was of John’s. She promotes Memphis music on a large scale, through events like the Blues Ball, and on a small scale, by supporting and championing individuals. Recently, she took a young musician — “he has talent exuding from every pore” — under her wing and gave him some tough talk, admonishing him against a potentially career-crippling move. He reluctantly took her advice, later thanking her for her fierce determination and “unfiltered honesty.”
Pat’s childhood on the farm in Savannah is especially on her mind these days, from the fun of making outfits for her 17(!) cats and making them do fashion shows for her, and stealing eggs from the chickens to add to her mud pies, to the spirituality gained in her small-town Methodist church.
She was extremely close to her late mother, and carries those maternal lessons with her. Margaret Kerr was herself something of a fashionista. Known in Savannah as “The Hat Lady,” she put together a collection of more than 100 hats; these were featured in both local and national publications. Speaking of her fashion origins, Pat says, “I learned the importance of stitches and the length of stitches and ‘if you can’t do it right, don’t do it!’ If I ever write a book, that will probably be the title: If You Can’t Do It Right, Don’t Do It! That’s a lesson of my mother that permeates my brain every day of my life.
“I’ve had lots of things occur in my life that were challenging, but I will tell you that I feel so blessed. The strength I have, and any secret that I might have, come strictly from the way I was raised by my family. I was the genetic sweepstakes winner in the lottery of life with my parents, and we were just so blessed.”
Pat Tigrett still charges through life at a breakneck pace. “I’m absolutely passionate about everything I do, because I throw myself totally into it with abandon. I may get focused on four other things at the same time, but it’s something that’s just always worked for me.”
But nevertheless, Pat has a certain calm and peace about her. In the early days of her business, she needed to prove herself, but that’s no longer necessary. Perhaps now she’s thinking about her legacy.
“I have never worked a day in my life,” Pat says, “and yet I have worked every day of my life, just because I have enjoyed it so much.” Going forward, she sees herself doing “more of the same” — art, collecting, designing, the charitable foundation, creating. “I love creating spaces that make people smile, like the Blues Ball,” she says.
On her patio overlooking the river, she breaks away from conversation. “Oh, look at the sky. It’s just all blue tonight, like Picasso colors — the Blue Period. So beautiful. Behind you, there’s a streak of pink — a lonely little pink cloud.
“The Mississippi River is like a magnet,” she continues. “I’m a Cancer — drawn to water. It equalizes me. It just gives me such peace in the afternoons to be here. The security of home has been my secret strength.”
Pat Kerr Tigrett is at home in Memphis on the Mississippi River, and at home with herself. “I tell you, the thing that I am is grateful. I really am grateful. I just feel so good.”
