Time to be more Diana Vreeland
There are many good books, either expressly about fashion or ones in which clothes play a substantial role in scene and character setting. Though some, like Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, are bleak, albeit exquisitely so.
But if you’re looking for something both escapist and delightfully enlightening, I recommend D.V., Diana Vreeland’s 1984 autobiography. I frequently return to my copy, with its glossy red cover – her favourite shade. She painted her nails, lips and entire apartment lacquer red and claims in D.V. that Charles Revson stole the idea for his Revlon fast-drying nail polish from the two big flacons of varnish she brought back to New York from Paris after the outbreak of war.
Born to privilege in Manhattan, Vreeland is not an obvious hero for today’s self-righteous brigade. But in her eternal enthusiasm for the new, the young (she supposedly coined the term “youthquake”), and zero tolerance for the word “can’t”, she ought to be.
She was an unconventional fashion editor of US Harper’s Bazaar from 1936-62 and as editor-in-chief of US Vogue from 1963-71. Throughout, she maintained a steadfast belief in the power of fashion to elevate the mind and body in turbulent times. “Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world,” she said.
She was also a pragmatist. “Always take off one thing before you leave the house,” she counselled. At Bazaar, she became notorious for her “Why Don’t You?” columns, which featured gems such as: “Why Don’t You find one dress that you like and have it copied many times? You will be much more successful than if you try to produce the same effects each evening?” (Actually that one is quite useful.)
Lurking beneath the frivolity was an acute mind and an infallible eye for real beauty, genuine innovation and the phoney. “Pink is the navy blue of India,” she opined. She also said: “Thoughtfulness and manners are everything.” Again, hard to argue with.
Vreeland understood that fashion could have a real impact on the way women live their lives. One day, she recalls in D.V.: “I said to an editor ambling around the hall, ‘I’ve got the best idea! We’re going to eliminate all handbags… I carry much more than most people… cigarettes, lipstick, comb, powder, rouge, my money. But what do I want with a bloody old handbag that one leaves in taxis?’” She proposed producing an issue dedicated to pockets, showing how “the silhouette is improved and also one’s walk – nothing limits a woman’s walk like a pocketbook”, until Carmel Snow pointed out that Bazaar made millions a year from handbags...
She was always one step ahead, minting original ideas and encouraging avant-garde talent (Twiggy, Zandra Rhodes, Manolo Blahnik and Lauren Bacall, whom she allegedly discovered). It was Vreeland who dusted off the desiccated Costume Institute at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and began mounting fashion exhibitions people wanted to see. It’s now The Anna Wintour Costume Institute and its Met Ball, although postponed this year, has become an annual fashion-meets-pop-culture phenomenon.
Vreeland adored genuine eccentricity, which made the British of interest to her. “Think of the Marquess of Bath, who owned Longleat,” she writes. “He went through the whole war with a duck on a lead, praying for bombs to fall so that his duck would have a pond to swim in.” If she were around now she’d be casting an avid eye over the Dress Up Friday and Saturday Night Fever selfies that are flourishing as people find excuses to continue enjoying fashion.