- Delia Chandler
- Sep 2, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 22, 2024
My 8 year old daughter is obsessed with The Devil Wears Prada. She pops in the DVD whenever she gets a hankering to design a dress out of scrap fabric for a Barbie or a paper gown for paper doll. In the mornings, she is usually the first one dressed, jacket on, rucksack and Betty Boop lunch box at the ready, whilst the rest of us are running around like headless chickens searching for a renegade sock or a misplaced mobile phone. Amidst the chaos she quotes in the calm and quietly stern manner of fashion industry matriarch Amanda Priestley (Meryl Streep in Anna-Wintour-in-a-white-wig drag), "Why is no one ready?"
In the age of "stripper chic", Snookie (Cancelled! A true public service if ever there was one) and desperate housewives from every major metropolitan area on the planet, it does my heart proud that my daughter draws creative inspiration from this classic small-town-girl-does-good-in-the-big-city fable featuring an accomplished and powerful woman at the helm of a multi-million pound company. For my daughter's generation, women like Amanda Priestly are the norm. And I don't need to tell you, dear readers, that wasn't always the case.
As part of A/W London Fashion Week 2012, I had the pleasure of attending a press screening of the inspirational documentary The Eye Has To Travel about Diana Vreeland, noted columnist and fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar (1936 -1962), Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Magazine (1962 - 1971) and creative director and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York in the 70's and 80's. Vreeland was pivotal in recreating the face of fashion journalism by ushering in an image of the post-WW2 modern woman. The women of Vreeland's world were chic, stylish, independent, intelligent, and hard working either inside or outside the home, and quite often both. Her ground-breaking editorial and genre-bending photos encouraged women to seek out their own identity, live their lives to the fullest and embrace a new sense of style and empowerment.
"Vogue always did stand for people's lives. I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later." - Diana Vreeland
Vreeland started her publishing career at Harper's with the "Why don't you.. " column of zinging one liners that were part sarcastic social commentary, part common sense. For example, "Why don't you... rinse your blonde child's hair in dead champagne like they do in France". It may reek of posh frivolity but actually, much like apple vinegar, the acidic fermentation of the white grape acts as a clarifier, stripping one's hair of product build up and residue from shampoos and conditioners, therefore retaining it's sheen.
"Why don't you paint a map of the world on all four walls of your boys' nursery so they won't grow up with a provincial point of view?"
- Diana Vreeland, Harper's Bazaar - August 1936
Vreeland on vulgarity:
"Vulgarity is a very important ingredient in life. I'm a great believer in vulgarity- if it's got vitality. A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste- it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against."
I struggle with her opinion on vulgarity, but I agree that it is worse to have no taste at all.
Renown for her unconventional sensibilities and strong opinions, her staff strictly adhered to her seemingly eccentric demands, often with brilliantly groundbreaking results. Bucking the 1940's trend towards booking curvacious and buxom models, Vreeland spotted in the tall, lanky and flat chested Lauren (known then as Betty) Bacall a modern attitude and sultry insolence that would later catapult Ms Bacall into legendary silver screen stardom.
After being passed over for a promotion at Harper's, Vreeland joined Vogue in 1962, then was made Editor-in-Chief in 1963. Vreeland enjoyed the 60's, as she saw it as a time when uniqueness was celebrated.
Twiggy on meeting Vreeland:
“Going to meet her was like going to meet the Queen. She was over the top, and would go on about how she ‘adored’ me. I know I probably owe most of what happened in New York to her.”
Twiggy excerpted from Diana Vreeland by Eleanor Dwight
Vogue Cover April 15th, 1967
True to form, in 1955 Vreeland hired noted interior decorator Billy Baldwin to decorate her newly acquired NYC flat to "look like a garden in hell". I think he fulfilled the brief...
View the official trailer of the documentary on Diana Vreeland's life, loves, and legacy
The Eye Has To Travel which opens internationally 21 September 2012
Additional images:
Louise Dahl-Wolfe
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