The book excels visually and textually. It is filled with illuminating essays by Judith Thurman and Judith Clark and with insightful observations and comments from people who collaborated with the charismatic Editor in Chief.
Were there certain facts by which you were particularly struck? Lisa Immordino Vreeland: The research process entailed going through twenty six years of Bazaar, nine years at Vogue and all of her shows at the Costume Institute. I was particularly struck by the breadth of her vision. It clearly was not just about fashion — it was a vision and philosophy that Mrs. Vreeland embraced. How far did she go? LIV: Mrs. Vreeland was famously known to be a very difficult person with whom to work — she had a standard of work that she applied to everything.
She felt that as she worked so hard — everyone should do the same. She even had co-workers who would cry at the end of a work day because they were so upset with her but who would return the next day wanting more because she was such a great teacher. LIV: As a young child Mrs. This was not a dictum that applied to her own personal style but the way she acted and lived her life. It was clearly a very pivotal moment for her. Did her mother also instill in Mrs.
Vreeland her love for clothes, or were there other influences? She was different from the typical society women and because Mrs. Vreeland tick? I not only understand her creativity but her dreams.
It was her dreams and passion that drove her. She wanted people to be part of those dreams and passions and used her work to push forward that message. Vreeland was also renowned for her strong opinions. Do you know whether designers consulted her on their collections, or asked her advice before they were presented on the catwalk?
She was known always to be very supportive of the French designers but was able to interact more with the American designers as she was based in America. Each chapter is introduced by commentary from Vogue editors who worked with her, giving readers a truly inside look at how Diana Vreeland directed the course of the magazine and fashion world.
Polly Mellen was a fashion editor at Vogue for twenty-five years. This really is the perfect book for any individual looking for personal and behind-the-scenes insight in to the world of fashion publishing, and where better to begin with the legend that is Diana Vreeland! If you are a lover of fashion, you need this book. But the same is true if you love to hate fashion and its menagerie of human grotesqueries.
Instead, it's the landscape of the fancifully creative mind of one of the greatest fashionistas and editrices of the 20th century. Not only do we get the specifics of Vreeland's taste-- but there are also revealing letters and dashed-off notes from one of the most forceful personalities of the last century. France was the dream-world. She had in mind a school of fashion based in Paris, like Cubism or Impressionism. Diana and I became far better friends after she left magazines.
She hated Seventh Avenue—she used the Americans to make up fantasy clothes. The dynamic equilibrium at Bazaar was upset when Carmel Snow retired in The elevation of her niece Nancy White as her successor was in effect a nepotistic checkmate against Vreeland.
Feeling slighted and underpaid, Vreeland locked her sights on Vogue. Afterwards, she rushed over to Mitzi, practically threw herself at her, and showered her with compliments. Jessica had been a manager.
Creative fashion was not her strength. She and Diana clashed, so Daves resigned. I have no intention of becoming that involved with fashion. But Vreeland was uncontrollable.
Rock music, the Pill, the Warhol Factory—all, to use one of her pet phrases, thrilled her to madness. So indulgent was Vreeland toward counterculture excesses that Joe Eula remembers her coolly ignoring a vial of cocaine that rolled out of his pocket during a meeting in her scarlet-walled, leopard carpeted office—only to advise him as he left to wear pockets that buttoned.
No ideas were too outlandish, no expenditures too lavish, no fantasies too bizarre for the intrepid editor and her magazine. I did come back with an important essay on Gypsies. It was a kind of magic she used to get things done. But it was a nightmare working for her. Once, I spent the whole day with Penelope Tree to do two pictures.
She was the first to publish a photograph of Mick Jagger, and the one who sent me Veruschka. If her tastes in models, editorial spreads, and fashion ran to extremes, it never stopped less courageous rivals from falling into lockstep behind her.
No one dared applaud or even scribble a note at a show before Vreeland, according to Bailey. Her colleagues and competitors intuitively recognized that at the center of this outrageous whirlwind lay a rigorous, controlling eye. Only where money was concerned did her discipline falter. Or assign me to go to India to photograph white tigers for a spread that would never run.
I saw enormous amounts of trouble…. Vogue is supposed to be a responsible, carefully planned magazine. She should not have been editor in chief. So… mea cupla. I felt like I had betrayed her. She was so big in her way of doing it.
Whatever Vreeland herself felt about her expulsion from a position she proclaimed the best spot at the best time, she never voiced it.
She faced the event with the same impenetrable stoicism with which she had braved the other great blow of her seventh decade, the death of Reed in To put some distance between her and her travails, Vreeland went abroad for four months.
But I thought, This is ridiculous. Renewed, and elevated to her most splendid perch yet, the bird of paradise had risen from the ashes. In turn, starting with her Balenciaga exhibition, Vreeland breathed life into the sleepy Costume Institute. And we gained a lot of gifts. The institute became the hot place for donations. Her detractors, who could not see past the chucky bracelets jangling on her double-length wrists, complained that the exhibits were academically unsound entertainments.
But the costume department always retained the much less public Stella Blum as curator. Vreeland wanted replicas made. The real ones looked old. The original, awed, hysterical response which is always a component of fashion.
It was absolutely not the truth she was after. As if her whole life had been one long prologue building up to this final climax, everything that Vreeland had ever worshipped converged in her position as special consultant—history, fashion, ritual, pageantry, society, travel.
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