Diana Vreeland was the twentieth century’s greatest arbiter of style and elegance. As fashion editor at Harpers Bazaar for twenty-five years, Editor in Chief of Vogue and creator and ambassador of fantastic exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, Diana, with her passion for living, her legendary wit and charm energized the world of style and fashion for over fifty years. Not bad for a woman who had no intention of actually working for a living.
Diana Vreeland can be described as a wellborn social butterfly that dabbled in the world of fashion, exercising her unique ability to give the fantasy starved American woman whatever it was she wanted to see. Not born into wealth, just socially well connected, Diana was groomed by her mother to be like the women who graced the covers of the fashion magazines she came to manage.
Diana Vreeland did not actually begin her formal career until sometime in her mid thirties. She was wife to an unwealthy but socially accepted handsome American banker, Reed Vreeland, and mother of two sons. Her early days were spent as part of a milieu that effortlessly blended society and artist in a whirl of activity. She was a friend to Coco Chanel, The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Daisy Fellowes and Christian Bernard.
Most of these days were spent in designer showrooms being fitted for everything from clothing to hats and gloves.
But she paid almost nothing for her designer clothes. For the French Designers, Diana had what they called jolie/laide, which means beautiful/ugly. In fact, Diana was considered by most to be very ugly, one journalist in America suggesting that her looks were reminiscent of a cigar store wooden Indian. To the world, however, it didn’t matter. Couturiers saw her as an original, a mannequin du monde. So they offered her the clothing and accessories for nothing, in exchange for her chic manner and visibility.
When Reed moved the family to New York Diana continued living the way she always had until Caramel Snow, the then editor of Harpers Bazaar magazine, approached her. Snow had the uncanny ability to sniff out virgin talent and wanted Diana as Fashion Editor suggesting that she would be paid for what she was already doing.
Diana accepted the position and soon began changing the way fashion was reported to the public. Instead of simply reporting the styles and trends of fashion, Diana began to create, to motivate and popularize, certain objects, attitudes and ideas. She did this with her legendary observations, comments, wit and humour, keeping the American public, especially women, always wanting more. “The bikini is the most important invention since the atom bomb”, was one statement. “Never fear being vulgar, just boring”, was another.
On one occasion during a fashion layout for Vogue magazine, Diana was informed that a phrase, “windbreaker” that she was using, was already copyrighted. Breathlessly she rushed into the copy room and demanded, "Quick, what's another word for breaking wind?” On another occasion she created a two-page layout of a nude female lying face down in the sand, her derriere covered in a large black straw hat. The caption read, “Spend the summer under a big black sailor.”
Diana Vreeland was a visionary in the world of style, elegance and fashion. “People who eat white bread have no dreams.” She was known to say. “Without emotion, there is no beauty” and “What sells is hope”. The stories she told and the tales she spun were nothing less than memorable and she is still quoted today. The American public hung on to every word and on one occasion a brave journalist asked her, “Mrs. Vreeland, is that fact or fiction?” After a small pause she replied, “It’s faction”.
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