Grateful for Vreeland

A delightfully entertaining read is offered in the new, big, over-sized, hard-cover book Diana Vreeland Memos: The Vogue Years. Vreeland, the legendary fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar, editor in chief at Vogue, and Special Consultant at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is an endlessly fascinating figure who has been the subject of numerous articles, books and a documentary. This book of Vreeland's Vogue memos was lovingly edited by her grandson Alexander Vreeland. He is the son of Frederick Vreeland, who was a diplomat, and husband of Lisa Immordino Vreeland, who produced the documentary and book about Diana Vreeland called The Eye Has to Travel.

In his charming introduction, Alexander recalls his grandmother's habits. When Diana Vreeland was the editor of Vogue, she typically worked in the bathroom of her Park Avenue apartment in the morning, dictating memos and letters over the phone to her secretaries. By the time she arrived at the office, which was never before noon, she was done with her daily correspondence.

Alexander remembers visiting his grandmother as a boy in her office for lunch where a small card table would be set up for them to eat together. She listened intently to her grandson as she enjoyed her lunch of a peanut butter sandwich, a glass of whiskey and a bowl of ice cream. Then she was back to work, creating her infamous issues of Vogue.

Her memos and letters collected in the book reveal her exacting mind and super creative imagination. Vreeland knew precisely what she wanted to see in the pages of her magazine, and these memos describe to her staff in words how to get it. Besides her famous visual eye, she was a gifted writer and copy editor. Some of the memos are like poetry; they express her intellect, optimism and enthusiasm. Here are a couple of my favorites and how they are pictured in the book –

"There will be amusing ways of doing things...
putting things on...
thinking about yourself...
being who you are... the way you want to be..."

"Let's keep to blue because of sky and marvelous tiling everywhere...
vivid blues, mixed blues, printed blues, blue, blue all the way." 

"Think Nureyev is absolutely sensational!"

"Let's make our writing the best... let's have it flow and have a rhythm...
I think this piece so really important that it should be written over again."

Beauty
Is
Within
"I wish that we could have a spiritual article that would give people a bit of a lift."

"Beauty is in all things that love and are loved,
animals and children, and if women have it,
it is because they feel completely free in this
world and in their lives as they feel close to God...
and they are spiritually in tune with the universe."

Diana Vreeland is the gift that keeps on giving.
Best wishes and happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel

I recently toddled over to the Angelika Theater on Houston Street to see Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, the wonderful documentary made about the style icon by her granddaughter-in-law Lisa Immordino Vreeland, who published a book by the same name last year and is married to Vreeland's grand son Alexander. This movie is a terrifically entertaining closeup look at one of the great fashion figures of the twentieth century.

Readers of this blog surely know about Diana Vreeland who was the legendary fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar, then the editor-in-chief at Vogue during the Sixties, and when she was fired from Vogue, created at the Metropolitan Museum of Art the Costume Institute as we know it today with her blockbuster exhibits.

What stands out in the documentary is her great drive and work ethic coupled with her imagination and creativity. Growing up, her mother told her she was ugly. In New York City, she lasted at the Brearley School for three months. She was not a great beauty nor was she formerly educated, but she created great beauty and educated herself and thus encouraged her readers and viewers to dream and live more beautiful lives.
She met her handsome husband Reed Vreeland in 1929. Here they are pictured at a cocktail party with the always chic Slim Keith on the left.

Vreeland's great curiosity made her passionate for a wide range of subjects – from the French eighteenth century, Russia, and horses to Diaghilev, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. Angelica Huston in the movie notes that before Vreeland, women's magazines were focused on "how to fit in with your husband and how to make a pie. But who cares about pies...when you have Russia!"

The editor began her job at the Met when she was 70 ("What was I going to do? Retire?") As a boy visiting New York City from upstate I remember a couple of her Costume Exhibit shows, including the Hollywood one, which were astounding displays of fantasy and beauty. Vreeland was a storyteller, this movie says, and she was presenting her version of the way the world could be. "I believe in the dream," she says. "There is only one really good life and that is the life you know you want and you make it yourself." At the end she states, "I shall die very young. Whether I am 70 or 80 or 90, I shall die very young."

What a great inspiration she is. See this movie if you can. Here is the trailer:

Exotic Taste: Orientalist Interiors

I am enjoying right now a new book I received published by The Vendome Press which explores the elaborate style of Orientalism. Exotic Taste: Orientalist Interiors by Emmanuelle Gaillard is a big, gorgeous tome which illustrates how the art and style of the East affected the decorating, architecture, and fashion of the West. The book inspires the reader to reach beyond what is familiar with exotic elements.
I have never been to Asia, though I would love to go. Some day, I hope. I love Asian things. My mother gave me a tall, brown, glossy Asian vase, probably in 1982, which I cherish. As I have said here on the blog before, my great aunt Milly lived in the Philippines and brought back a lot of Asian objects to 611 so they have always appealed to me and felt like home to me.
In the eighteenth century, this book says, European designers and architects turned away from the rigors of classicism which was popular at the time in search of something more romantic, sensual and pleasurable. As a yearning for the exotic grew in Europe, Chinese salons, Turkish boudoirs and Persian bedchambers appeared in interiors. What is interesting to see in this book is how Europeans interpreted Asian styles for their own use.
At the Chateau de Haroue in Lorraine, France, artist Jean Pillement painted birds, insects, animals and pagodas on chinoiserie panels in an elegant composition of pale colors. It's Marie Antoinette meets the Empress Dowager.

(Photos courtesy of The Vendome Press)
Similar pale tones show up in England at the Royal Pavilion, residence of George, Prince of Wales, in Brighton. The Long Gallery designed by Frederick Grace is decorated in shades of blue, pink and red. It's a dreamy palette.

A stronger contrast of blue and red is apparent in the blue lacquer desk owned by Madame de Pompadour in front of a red panel at the Musee des Arts Decortifs in Paris. Gold is the common denominator here.

This torchere designed by the firm Christolfe in 1874 is made of cloisonne enamel and gilt and patinated bronze. What fantastic detail.

From 1800, this pair of carved wood chairs with a mother-of-pearl inlay is attributed to Gabriel Viardot. Such an unusual, imaginative shape.

The Eastern style influenced fashion too. Here are Monseiur Levett and Mademoiselle Giavan in Turkish Costume, painted by Jean-Etienne Liotard in 1740. The low bed is covered in a pretty pale floral fabric. Why does this painting make me think of Diana Vreeland?

Kashmiri shawls woven from the woolly fleece of Tibetan goats became popular in Europe, and soon Scottish mills produced imitations of the imported shawls. The Scottish mill town of Paisley created exact replicas of Kashmiri shawls, and gave its name to the classic pattern.

This long cashmere paisley shawl is from 1870-75.

I like having paisley around me, whether in a challis wool Etro scarf or pillow covers in the living room. Paisley adds a romantic, timeless element. I recently got some paisley cocktail napkins inspired by a print by William Morris, and I love what they add to the table. Exotic Taste encourages the reader to consider the beauty of Asia and bring some of it home.

Carolina Herrera Spring 2011

A jeweled evening gown topped by a staw hat: chic.
(Photos from Vogue.com)
I have been admiring the Spring 2011 collection of Carolina Herrera, shown last week in New York City. Carolina Herrera was born and grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, the daughter of the aristocratic governor of Caracas. Carolina, who has two daughters from a previous marriage, is married to Reinaldo Herrera, special projects editor at Vanity Fair, and they have two adult children – Patricia and Carolina, who works with her mother at her fashion company and is married to an ex-bullfighter.

In 1980 Carolina Herrera started her designer label with the encouragement of none other than Diana Vreeland. I am drawn to Carolina's work because it is definitely luxe and rich but there is a simplicity to it too, like her signature work outfit of a crisp white shirt and a black or grey skirt. I like her combination of the refined and the casual, for example finishing a gown with a straw hat, belting a skirt with a bit of string, or combining a ball skirt with a tee shirt. Her style is romantic but modern, and she also has a wonderful sense of color. I think that's why Jackie Onassis was a big fan of hers too.

The show notes said the designer was inspired for this collection by traditional clothes of Korea. A red silk dress in an Asian print was finished with a jeweled obi belt.

while a light summer skirt was tied with red string.

For this collection, Manolo Blahnik designed shoes that featured what looked like Asian boxes wrapped in red.

Herrera was also inspired by eighteenth century floral prints. You can even see the tape depicted in the print.

I love the combination of colors below. These colors remind me of Christian Lacroix.

For evening there was this vivid orange gown accessorized with a Korean fisherman's hat.

This gown comes with its own "diamond" brooch of embroidered crystals.

A beautiful blouse and skirt: John Singer Sargent style for 2011.

Like a watercolor wash, embroidered black beads zig-zag down the front of this gown

which is topped with a straw hat.

Here is an eighteenth century floral print interpreted in a gown and belted with a green ribbon, perfect for a spring dance at the botanical garden.

This confection features the floral print as an underskirt topped by a pouf of silk which has pockets for a casual stance.

Eighteenth century style for today, no?

Beautiful details.

Hats off to La Herrera.

The Ballets Russes

I was having a swanky lunch recently on the seventh floor at Bergdorf Goodman with a friend from college, and afterwards I discovered in the cozy book department there a big, new, glossy book out about the Ballets Russes.
We love the Ballets Russes.
I first learned about the Ballets Russes (that's French for the Russian Ballets) from Diana Vreeland because when you read about her, she talks a lot about the dance company, and in fact mounted a show about it in 1978 when she was the consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. Boy, I would love to have seen that.
The Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev formed the Ballets Russes, which performed mainly in Paris from 1909 until his premature death in 1929. Many of the company's dancers came from the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, and arrived in Paris as exiles from the Russian Revolution.
Here is a portrait of Diaghilev with his nanny by Leon Bakst from 1906 (all images courtesy The Monacelli Press).


But, the Ballets Russes was a radical departure from classical dance. Diaghilev invited all kinds of artists to contribute, and incorporated into the company all aspects of art, costume design, set design, music and dance. It was really an artistic revolution which announced the dawn of the modern age. Sets were created by Picasso, Braque, Miro and de Chirico. Costumes were designed by Chanel and Matisse.
This robe, based on a design by Henri Matisse for the ballet Le Chant du Rossignol, 1920, is made of silk satin painted with flowers and edged with velvet.


Robe based on a design by Leon Bakst for the ballet Le Dieu Bleu, 1912, of wool with gilt metal, satin appliques and gilt buttons.



The aesthetics, the music and dance were all part of the final creation. Igor Stravinsky, the premier composer of the earlier twentieth century, was hired by Diaghilev when he was a young man, and went on to create for the company his great works The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring. Diaghilev promoted to ballet master the young George Ballanchine who went on to co-found the New York City Ballet and create modern ballet in the twentieth century. Diaghilev moved male dancers who had previously been overshadowed by prima ballerinas to the forefront. Here is Mikhail Fokin in the ballet Le Spectre de la Rose from 1914.


Diaghilev's greatest star (and lover) was Nijinsky, the dancer and choreographer who created ballets which reached far beyond tradition and experimented with the new, futuristic direction of modern dance. Some of his work in fact caused riots and scandal.
Costume design by Leon Bakst for Nijinsky as the Faun in L'Apres Midi d'un Faun.


Diana Vreeland said, in 1978 to the Palm Beach Daily News, that when the Ballets Russes opened, "it was a turning point for all the arts. The brilliant colors and bold rhythms put an end to the paleness and primness of the early part of the century. Nothing has ever been the same since." What a fantastic time to live in Paris, at the dawn of modern art. This deluxe book from The Monacelli Press is beautifully illustrated and includes a number of varied essays which offer a thorough and lively exploration of the many accomplishments of this extraordinary dance company.
A few years ago, TD and I went on New Year's Eve to see the documentary Ballets Russes (2005). There was practically no one else in the small, darkened theater. After Diaghilev died, the company continued on in various forms, and some of the dancers were still alive to talk about it. Many of the old dance clips are of course in black and white, and my memory of that movie is that it simply sparkled in the dark with radiance and delight.

DV

Below is a video clip of the great fashion magazine editor Diana Vreeland. This is such a treat, and the only video clip I can find of her. "Too brief a treat," Truman Capote would have said.

Vreeland, who was the fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar and then the editor in chief at Vogue for many years, was an artist and her medium was magazines. She had a brilliant way with pictures and words that was inspiring and magical. She pushed the reader to use the imagination and create something new and different, to be original. She herself was not a beauty, but she transformed herself into a legendary figure that shaped the world of fashion. Her own self-discipline had a lot to do with it.

After she was fired, Vreeland went on famously to expand The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute and put it on the map with her blockbuster shows. I interviewed her once on the phone for an article I wrote for Vogue about how costume exhibitions influence fashion designers. After we were done talking, Vreeland said to me, "Thank you for calling me." When Vreeland died in 1989 I was invited to the memorial service at the Met. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a guest, and George Plimpton and Richard Avedon spoke.

A few years ago I profiled the great fashion editor Polly Mellen for the Bergdorf Goodman magazine. Diana Vreeland hired Polly Mellen, first at Harper's Bazaar, and then brought Polly over to Vogue. Polly said to me, "I was in love, no question, with Mrs. Vreeland." Click on the image below to enlarge it and read my article here.


In the clip below, Vreeland is being interviewed by Mike Douglas. I fondly remember Mike Douglas's talk show, but he looks out of his element here, asking questions like, "What is style and who has it?" and "Do you favor tailored clothing or an experimental look?" Vreeland is promoting her upcoming shows at the Met which she describes as "a big potpourri, rather like a souk, rather like a marketplace, rather like an arcade." She gets out some good lines including, "Style takes inspiration and imagination," and "Education has a great deal to do with everything."

She talks fondly about the 1920's -- "The dancing, the music, the arts. The world was alive with everything new. It was the start of the twentieth century." "The Roaring Twenties!" exclaims Mike Douglas. But undoubtedly, Vreeland is not talking about the American Roaring Twenties, she is talking about Paris in the Twenties, and Picasso and the Ballets Russes and Stravinsky and Chanel.

"In Europe, I think there is more snap in the air," Vreeland purrs. "Yes I do."