Diana Vreeland

Her story is that she died 35 years ago.

Not sure, but I bet it's got something to do with Andy Samberg.

Brooke Astors' evil twin.

A face that would stop a clock.

Diana and Brooke had little in common.

Pink is the navy blue of India.

[quote]What’s her story?

Read this book, OP...

PURPLE MITTENS

Why don’t you… have an elk-hide trunk for the back of your car? Hermès of Paris will make this.”

Why don’t you… rinse your blond child’s hair in dead champagne to keep it gold, as they do in France?

Why don’t you… put all your dogs in bright yellow collars and leads like all the dogs in Paris?

There’s a documentary on her that’s truly great. I think it’s called The Eye has to Travel. It’s fun! And so was she.

Wore the same shade of lipstick on both pairs of lips!

DL owes Diana much. She helped make caftans chic after discovering them on a trip to Morocco.

She referred to them as "fashionable for the beautiful people."

MLW/DV

I worshiped the pretentious fug.

A true legend...

Diana & Reed

I love the way she speaks. She has that Mid-Atlantic accent that reminds me of Bette Davis and other classic Hollywood actresses from the Golden Age.

She looks like a jolly Fran Leibowitz

"Profile like a cigar store Indian."

Another Diana & Reed Vreeland

Kay doing a knock-off of DV...

She just had...style.

Do people consider Vreeland superior to Wintour or do people see Wintour as having surpassed Vreeland?

It's hard for young people today (those under 60!) to understand there were once pronouncements every season about fashion that created strict rules and determined, for instance, what colors were in or out, what the only sane length of a hemline could be, which animal fur was appropriate for winter wear, the particular shape of breasts in the correct bra, the advantages of a V neckline over a scooped neckline, the shape and width of a high heel and toe box, the best hue for a string of pearls, etc. Everybody who was anybody listened.

Diana Vreeland was the Queen of those pronouncements for several decades. Really, until the 1970s, when rules were only made to be broken.

Wintour isn't fit to hem DV's skirt, r24.

A look

She was totally fucking bonkers, but in a really interesting kind of way.

She started The Met Costume Institute which is now called The Anna Wintour Costume Center for some reason.

I remember Vreeland's first two exhibits for the Met, Balenciaga (whose work and influence were not that well-known by the general public in 1972) and then Hollywood costume design (a new and well-deserved appreciation as an art form). Both spectacular, theatrical and also so much more accessible than most of the exhibits they've done in the last decades.

Wintour is a hack compared to Vreeland.

Vreeland was a notoriously picky eater. She practically lived on shephard's pie, and would request it when visiting friends for lunch, telling them that their cook made the best she'd had, when in fact it's about all she was willing to eat.

RED

Peach, mind you, peach.

She's the template for the the Data Lounge Eldergay.

r33, well, that's one way to make your waist look small.

(not Shepherd's pie)

She seemed to be a halfway decent person or as much as a fashion doyenne could be compared to Wintour. And yes that doc on her is terrific. Very entertaining and at times funny. Like one of her sons saying she said to him that he was too old for her friends at Studio 54.

She had a joie de vivre that Wintour doesn't have. Anna always seems sour.

She made US Vogue fabulous then wintour destroyed it.

She was the very definition of vapid.

Au contraire, she was fascinating!

To the more vapid perhaps.

Well, smell r42.

Ask Mary Louise Wilson

r44 see r13

Vapid in Manhattan. It's a recipe.

It appears that r40-r46 has learned a new word!

I wish I had seen Full Gallop.

It was great—a handful of us at a matinee—all women over 60 and gay men of all ages. As Vivian Vane was reputed to say when peeking through the curtain before a matinee, “Not a Kotex out there.”

[quote]Vapid in Manhattan. It's a recipe.

I thought it was the way of life.

She's one of my favorite people and greatest inspirations because she was a self-made creation. Put down by her beautiful mother and compared unfavorably to her beautiful sister, when she was a teenager she dedicated herself to becoming "The Girl" who was not only desirable and fashionable, but knowledgable and interesting. The biography she provided was more or less correct, though extremely embellished. She credited her success in life to being raised in La Belle Epoque Paris-- the truth was that though she was born there, and spent a little time there as a child, she was raised almost entirely in New York. She met her elegant husband in one of her rare ventures below 100th Street as a 20s flapper, and together they charmed their way through the East Coast and European elite, jet-setting back and forth until the Second World War when they settled in New York for good. She was spotted by Carmel Snow while she was dancing with her husband in a nightclub and Carmel, knowing real style when she saw it, offered Diana a job at Harper's Bazaar the following day. The rest is history. Diana believed in bringing fantasy to the public, and showing women their potential. I love her quote: "It's not the clothes, it's the life you live in the clothes." Always thinking ahead, she embraced the counterculture movement in the 60s and coined the term "youthquake." She was responsible for bringing models like Twiggy, Penelope Tree, Anjelica Huston, and Cher into the mainstream-- unconventional beauties in whom she saw herself. She was a perfectionist and had a reputation as a taskmaster, but no one really has a bad word to say about this woman responsible for taking so many under her wing and espousing the importance of originality over "good taste." Yes, the documentary is great, as is her book of memos, the various biographies, and anything else you can get your hands on.

She does seem absolutely maaaaarvelous, R51. Thanks for sharing.

All hail!

She looks a little like David Brenner.

Her Manhattan apartment, which she had decorated to look like "A garden in hell."

This documentary was produced by the Met to coincide with their exhibition of clothes from La Belle Epoque, curated by DV. She's one of the featured talking heads. The doc is fascinating, entertaining, and beautiful. Why don't they produce films like this anymore?

Diana's two sons are still alive, both in their 90s now. One of them was an ambassador of some sort, and lives in Italy. He's surprisingly active on Instagram, and posts about his mother often. He paints a picture of someone affectionate but distant, it was understood that her career would keep her away and he seemed to accept that in a very healthy way. His son (or nephew) became a Buddhist Monk, shaved head and all, and was very close to his grandmother.

Fascinating, R57. Thank you!

Her sons are 98 and 96, and the 98-year-old got married earlier this year.

I don't think jet-setting was a thing in the 20s and 30s.

R59 R51 here, I thought the same thing as I was writing it, but it got the point across. This morning, the book I'm reading described the socialites of the 30s as "pre-jetsetters, before the jets," so I don't feel so bad about the incongruous phrase.

She looks like a character Scott Thompson would play on The Kids in the Hall.

PLEASE, don’t stand THERE!

I wish I had gone to her Hollywood exhibit. It was supposed to have been great. Now all those costumes are owned by individuals or have been lost. I have no idea why Spielberg or Lucas did not help Reynolds out with her costume exhibit. A very important part of their industry which would have been very popular. Well with the way things turned out it made Todd and her granddaughter very rich. I read that many of the costumes of My Fair Lady ended up in Titanic.

I don’t know why anyone in Hollywood whose passion is movies didn’t help Debbie. They go to great lengths to preserve or colorize films and have a whole channel devoted to the history of movies. Costumes are discussed-especially iconic outfits, and awards are given to the best of the best, but no one came to her aid.

Did Scorsese help? Or costumers? Historians? I don’t get it. But then again humans are strange on who they will help. People who are desperate usually don’t luck out.

Debbie Reynolds was insufferable and not well liked.

Even Merv Griffin didn't help her.

What a shame. No snark.

Really Debbie was not well liked? I had assumed everyone liked Debbie. Was she behind the scene a bitch on wheels?

It's pronounced DEE-ana, darlings.