Power duo’s era over in an Instagram
The news coursed through the sewers of Toronto society in the way it so often does these days: via Instagram.
“Home … where this ring belongs,” declared Mary Symons, a self-styled bon vivant, in a post she put up late last year, riffing on an image of three interlocking gold bands. “Bought at age 18 in Florence,” she went on, “the #trinityring stands for #love #trust #friendship … never let it go where it does not belong.”
In the semiotics of the day, this much was clear: when the going gets tough, the tough go hash-tagging.
That — and because posts likes these are the electronic equivalent, in our age, of putting up a billboard at Yonge-Dundas Square — it was an open invitation to speculate. In the parlance of millennial love on social media (though Symons is far from a millennial), it was definitely also performative. For those of us who’d heard the sotto voce whispers, it served, too, as confirmation: The biggest “divorce” in seeand-be-seen circles here, in some time, had occurred not between two lovebirds, but between a young widow and her gay BFF (or “gusband,” as that too-trite sobriquet goes).
“Hell hath no fury like a Grace scorned by her Will,” a mutual friend quipped when we had seen them look past each other at the annual holiday bash thrown at the home of Hermes Canada chief Jennifer Carter in December. As if they had never met. This, all the more shocking, given that the two loomed, for quite a few years, as one of the town’s most conspicuous duos.
Symons: the extra-tall hostess with the fiery hair (bringing to mind that famous painting of Marchesa Casati) who once modelled for Dior, hails from a family steeped in politics and academia, and is known for collecting friends, new and not-so-new (everyone from Jeanne Beker and Lisa LaFlamme to beginner bloggers). Nolan Bryant: a fair-faced gent, trim as an exclamation point, who popped up on the Toronto scene when he was barely legal and has long stood out for offering the period-piece aura of a Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited.
In the mind-hive of the 416 social set, there was always a hum of synergy between the two. With her art-filled manor in Rosedale, designed by Powell and Bonnell, and her constant thrum of travel — Symons took him with her to expensive hotels in Paris and Venice — and his job, made official a few years into their friendship, as the party columnist for the Globe and Mail, it was a two-way street. All the merrier given the brio Symons brings to socializing — she once told the Star in an interview that her schedule was such that, “until last night, I have not been home (for the evening) in 21 days.” As the woman who also made periodic buzz providing PR to some fairly glamorous events in this town — see: the party for the Vanity Fair Portraits show at the ROM and, just last year, a soiree held for shoe designer Manolo Blahnik at the Bata Shoe Museum (Symons long counted the late Sonja Bata as a mentor!) — and the man whose job meant covering shindigs across the country (everything from the literary to the arty to the society-speckled), their union reached a zenith when he literally moved into her house (following a breakup that Bryant was going through).
Last year, he eventually moved out. Then, mere months later, it was capital-O Over.
While the peculiarities of their split remain a story only they can tell (and, keeping mind, there are three sides to every decoupling!), it is said to have been precipitated by a new beau that came into Bryant’s life. What is interesting, from the perspective of anyone who has seen relationships fluctuate, is that, although they were joined at the proverbial hip, there was a perceived shift. Where he was at one point — when only a pup — usually seen as her accessory, when he became a regular at the Globe and his own star started to ascend, she was, just as often, his plus-one.
As is so often the case these days (as civilians take on the tropes of celebrities), the whole thing has played out since in the “shop window” of Instagram. Since procuring her ring, Symons has trampled off to live in Paris for the winter, much like new-world expats driven to France during the Jazz Era. (Symons once told me her favourite book was one the best books about that era, Everybody Was So Young). From there she has sent a non-stop stream of happy photos of herself either luxuriating at the Hemingway Bar, at the Ritz (where she has long been on a first-name basis) or highlighting the trickle of visitors she has played to (everyone from friends in Toronto to a “Sardinian opera singer”). Often, the posts seem intended but for one person.
Bryant, meanwhile — who is much less clockwork with his Instagram and more judicious in general — came through last week with a pic of him on a horse. It was on the Florida estate owned by Hilary and Galen Weston! “Horsing around @windsorflorida yesterday afternoon with the loveliest Argentinian polo pony,” read the caption.
Did his ex-friend catch the post? Oh, probably.
Though, in the Instagram politics of our time, this much does seem to be true, as someone pointed out to me this week: that while Bryant continues to follow Symons, Symons no longer follows Bryant.