- Used Book in Good Condition.
In the early 1960s Jackie Kennedy wrote to Diana Vreeland: "you
are and always will be my fashion mentor." Vreeland helped the
young First Lady create her famous "Jackie look" which was
imitated all over America. She had inspired readers of Harper
Bazaar's with her brilliant tips from the mid 1930s to the early
'60s and ran Vogue as editor-in-chief in its most innovative
years (1963-1972). Then for thirteen years she organized the
hugely successful annual costume history shows at the Costume
Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Known for her flamboyant personality, her striking looks, and
impeccable taste, Diana Vreeland changed fashion forever. Now, we
can begin to assess her immense contribution in Diana Vreeland.
This lavishly illustrated biography includes more than 300
full-color and black and white photographs many from Vreeland's
own family scrapbooks and collection which have never been seen
before, of family and friends and the talented people in the
fashion world whom she inspired -- designers, models, and
celebrities.
Diana Vreeland herself was not beautiful. Her appearance was so
striking, however, that it revealed nothing of her beginnings as
an awkward and difficult child who was born in 1903 into a
socially prominent New York family. How she succeeded in
transforming herself and developing a brilliant career is
chronicled in this fascinating biography by Eleanor Dwight, the
author of the highly praised Edith Wharton -- an Extraordinary
Life.
We see the ambitious ingénue marrying the strikingly handsome
Reed Vreeland in 1924, and embarking on a six-year sojourn in
England where during frequent trips to Paris she learned how to
change herself into a soignée and sophisticated young matron.
Vreeland began her fashion career at Harper's Bazaar in 1936,
writing a playful column entitled "Why Don't You." At the
magazine Vreeland thrived, asking questions like "Why don't you
rinse your blond child's hair in dead champagne to keep its gold
as they do in France? Or pat her face gently with cream before
she goes to bed as they do in England?"
Vreeland exerted great power over the magazine's content working
with editor-in-chief Carmel Snow and legendary art director
Alexey Brodovitch. When Snow left Bazaar, Vreeland did not get
her job. The fashion world waited in anticipation; surely,
Vreeland would move on to something important. In 1963 she became
the editor-in-chief of Vogue, a phenomenally powerful position.
She transformed Vogue from a ladylike, conventional publication
to one incredibly daring and electric. Her sensitivity to the
rebellious energy of the sixties and her understanding that
fashion was theatre and that she should give readers large doses
of fantasy -- "what they never knew they wanted" -- enlivened
Vogue. She sparked reader's imagination by sending leggy, vibrant
models to the far corners of the earth to be photographed on the
edges of cliffs or in picturesque settings on tropical islands.
In Diana Vreeland, we see her in the midst of varied and elite
social circles -- from the British aristocracy and literati of
her London days, to her glamorous New York and Southampton set,
to the talented fashion world of designers, editors and
photographers, to her friends in France who lived in villas and
chateaus and included the Windsors and Rothschilds, to Andy
Warhol's set of young rebels in the seventies. She fostered the
careers of many youthful figures whose talents she immediately
spotted including Lauren Bacall, Mary McFadden, Issey Miyake, and
Richard Avedon.
We see her attending Truman Capote's famous Black and White Ball
to celebrate his book In Cold Blood, where she discovered a
beautiful teenager named Penelope Tree whom she made into a
famous model. We see her partying with Jack Nicolson, lunching at
Warhol's Factory, and entertaining Garbo for tea. Her social
read like a Who's Who of the New York intelligentsia,
and included lunch dates with powerful women like Katherine
Graham and Suni Agnelli.
We see her enthroned in her famous red apartment, the "Garden in
Hell" and strutting through Vogue's offices terrifying adoring
protégés. We see her frustrating the staff of the Metropolitan
Museum as she piped music and perfume through the ventilation
system to create the exotic atmosphere for her costume shows.
Along the way we meet and see the work of photographers like
Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Cecil Beaton, and David Bailey, spot her
encouraging designers like O de la Renta, Christian Dior, and
Elsa Schiaparelli and mothering models like Carmen, Lauren Hutton
and Marisa Berenson.
Vreeland's profound influence left its imprint on culture and
society. Ultimately, the flamboyance that made Vreeland a success
would bring about her sudden downfall at Vogue. But, always able
to reinvent herself, she took a position at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art's Costume Institute. While there, she masterminded
costume extravaganzas -- drawing on all her knowledge,
enthusiasms and using her fabulous eye.
Elegant, inful, strikingly beautiful, and filled with
amusing anecdotes, Diana Vreeland reveals the complex,
intelligent, and caring woman behind the famous persona. When
Diana Vreeland became blind before her death in 1989, she said it
was because she had seen so many beautiful things in her life.
And when she died she became a legend.