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!

Fashion Renegades in New York

Fashion photograph by Lee Miller on the left and outfit by Jean Paul Gaultier on the right (click on photos to enlarge).
There are lots of fun events going on in New York City in the fall, and TD and I were invited to a couple on one night. Liz Smith used to say that on some nights in New York with multiple events, one needed to travel "by ambulance or helicopter." Such was the case.

First stop was the Staley-Wise Gallery on Broadway in Soho for a reception for a new book from Monacelli Press about the photographer Lee Miller by Becky E. Conekin who is a fashion historian and teaches modern European history at Yale.

Lee Miller is a fascinating story. She grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, up the Hudson River. As a young woman in New York City, she was stopped from stepping in front of a car by Mr. Condé Nast himself, who launched her as a model in the pages of his Vogue magazine.
Here is a picture in the book of Lee Miller wearing Chanel and photographed by George Hoyeningen-Huene in 1930.

Chic. I love the pure, elegant lines of the clothes from the 30's. Here is Lee Miller photographed in a simple v-neck dress with her brother Erik in 1930, also by Hoyeningen-Huene.

But Lee Miller was not content to model; she wanted to be a photographer. "I would rather take a picture than be in one," she said. In Europe, she became romantically involved with the Surrealist artist Man Ray. Lee Miller went on to become a distinguished photographer, first working in fashion and later as a photojournalist documenting World War II and the liberation of the concentration camps. It's believed that she never fully recovered from the horrors she witnessed in World War ll.

This new book Lee Miller in Fashion, is the first to examine her earlier career as a model and a fashion photographer. It's a fascinating look at a woman who refused to be tied down by tradition and fearlessly explored whatever intrigued her. 
Self portrait by Lee Miller –

Then we were on to Brooklyn (helicopter, please) for a preview of the work of another fashion rebel – French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier. The Brooklyn Museum is offering a retrospective of the work of the enfant terrible, the bad boy of fashion, which is up until Feb. 23, 2014. Gaultier is renowned for provocatively blending gender, showing skirts for men and tough, aggressive clothes for women like the big cone bra he designed for Madonna's Blonde Ambition Tour in 1990.

I love the Brooklyn Museum where a new modern entrance has been added on to the original Beaux-Arts facade. Inside, the ambitious exhibition features 140 garments from Gaultier's 30 years of fashion design. Adding an eery note, these digitized mannequins moved and talked. Their eyes blinked and they looked directly at you while spouting off. It was strangely weird and kind of distracting from the clothes but oddly entertaining.

This mannequin, wearing a top hat and a coat made of feathers to look like leopard skin, spoke in French.

More ensembles from the wild world of Jean Paul Gaultier.

The galleries rambled on in this big show which is a fun celebration of Gaultier's eccentric and unique vision of beauty. At the end we had a drink at the preview party and by then were starving so we walked down Flatbush Avenue to Franny's, the popular pizza restaurant owned by husband-and-wife team Andrew Feinberg and Francine Stephens. The place was crowded, and after a bit of a wait cooling our heels at the bar, we were seated at a table and enjoyed a delicious dinner. The food for the fresh salads, pizza and pasta is all sourced locally. Would definitely go back to this charming restaurant.

Hello Brooklyn.

The September Issue

This preview of the upcoming movie The September Issue is a real treat. This documentary by director R.J. Cutler is about how Anna Wintour and the editors at Vogue put together the September 2007 issue. Though only two years ago, it was another era, when the economy was flush, and magazines and newspapers were fat with advertising. Still, it looks like it offers a fascinating close-up of how Vogue and its editor-in-chief work:

A must-see for anyone interested in the world of fashion, luxury, magazines, media. Opening on August 28th in New York City and on September 11th in Los Angeles and select cities.

A Trip to the Met

I had the chance to pop up to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Costume Institute show called "The Model as Muse." Its theme is iconic models of the twentieth century and their roles in projecting and sometimes inspiring the fashion of their times. The exhibit started with the Charles James dresses pictured above, pieces of sculpture in their own right. Their rich, saturated colors and heavy, lustrous fabrics created a delicious tableaux. These dresses reminded me of Millicent Rogers, the Standard oil heiress who wore the most subtly colored Charles James gowns. She was also a very creative jewelry designer and lived in a house in Taos, New Mexico, now a museum out in the desert which TD and I have visited. Charles James was a sad story: though he created the most beautiful clothes, the eccentric designer died penniless in the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street.

In "The Model as Muse" show I was delighted to see one of my favorite fashion photographs of all time. Here is model Lisa Taylor wearing Calvin Klein photographed by Arthur Elgort in Vogue from October, 1976:

I think it captured American fashion so well: simple, clean, healthy, strong. Legendary fashion editor Polly Mellen worked on this shoot, and when I met Polly, we talked about this picture. Polly said, "She is the epitome of the modern woman, deep in thought, not just looking beautiful."

Here is another famous, iconic fashion photo in the show, also Lisa Taylor, also wearing Calvin Klein, this time shot by Helmut Newton for Vogue, May 1975. Polly worked on this shoot too: Polly really is one of the greats, isn't she? Someone should do a show on her.

This picture expressed the then new feminism movement; the woman in a sheer dress with her legs spread was clearly ogling the man passing by. Again, the picture is simple, strong, chic, just like the clothes. And Lisa Taylor was a knockout, the perfect embodiment of American beauty.

After that I went up to the Sculpture Roof Garden where currently installed is this crazy stainless steel sculpture called Maelstrom by Roxy Paine.

It's meant to make the viewer feel as if he is "immersed in the midst of a catalysmic force of nature" but honestly I was just afraid I was going to trip.

Or poke an eye out.

Then I went to the New American Wing. They cleaned things up and simplified there, taking out a gift shop and adding a little cafe; it would be a nice place to eat lunch.

On the way home I saw this guy on the subway; I think he was a model. Slim white shirt, narrow dark denim jeans, brown suede wing-tip tie-ups, cotton canvas bag with leather trim, wooden skate board. Very cool. Don't you love New York?

Alessandro Twombly

At Christie's last week, I met Elana Rubinfeld, a charming young woman who is the director at Fred Torres Collaborations, a new art gallery in Chelsea. She invited me to see an exhibition at the gallery of work by artist Alessandro Twombly.

I hoofed it up to West 29th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, a block I had not been down before. The gallery is on the third floor, and sunlight glowed through windows covered with white shades. The art work, in shades of pink, floated on white walls creating a festive party atmosphere.


Alessandro Twombly is the only child of Cy Twombly, who at 81 is one of the greatest artists living today. Cy Twombly inherited his name from his father who was named after Cy Young, the renowned pitcher. The American artist settled in a Roman palazzo with his wife Tatiana Franchetti (the sister of modern art patron and collector Barone Giorgio Franchetti) and their son Alessandro, and went on to create his famously poetic, cryptic, abstract paintings and drawings.

Son Alessandro has always worked as an artist too. He is married to couture fashion designer Soledad Twombly and they have two children. The family lives in Rome and in a house outside of Rome, where his mother Tatiana lives as well. Alessandro's work is not as abstract as his father's -- he is often inspired by flowers.
By poppies in Afghanistan:


Pink flowers in his Italian garden:


Red flowers in his Brazilian garden:

The work is spirited, lively, rich. The joyful colors and organic shapes have a happy exuberance.

Cy Twombly's life in Rome has interested me since I came across in the F.I.T. library a Vogue story from 1966 about the Twombly Roman palazzo, photographed by Horst and written by his partner Valentine Lawford. In the story the interiors of the elegant palazzo are pale grey and white -- the perfect combination of classical furnishings and Cy Twombly's abstract art.
A bedroom, below, featured Mongolian fox, Empire furniture and art by Cy Twombly. Today when you see Julian Schnabel's style of decorating, I think this is where it comes from: Twombly's mix of Baroque, grand furniture with oversized abstract art.

Here is Cy Twombly from that shoot at the palazzo in his 1928 Alfa Romeo wearing a World War I leather greatcoat.


Like father, like son: coincidentally Alessandro Twombly's house outside of Rome is published in the current issue of Elle Decor. Photographs of the interiors feature the sculpture and paintings now on view in Chelsea: life as art/art as life.

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."