Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel

“Diana Vreeland created style . . .”

Lisa Immordino Vreeland delivers more than just another retelling of the life of the famed Diana Vreeland. This is the consummate telling of one of the world’s greatest cultural visionaries. We are afforded the chance to enter the psyche of Mrs. Vreeland through recollections of those who worked with her, and then we become spellbound by the visual “souvenirs” that have been left behind in her work for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Diana Vreeland was not just interested in fashion, she was interested in art, life, society, personal habits, and just about anything that you can think of that had to do with living. Granted, Mrs. Vreeland was not a woman concerned with dusting and washing, but she was far more aware than many who were intimately involved with such mundane chores.

The word that comes to mind is passion, a quality of which Diana Vreeland had in endless supply. She broke rules, she defied convention, she was egotistical with her pronouncements, and she was emphatic and single-minded; in short, she was unequivocally a fashion genius.

She once said she knew what people would wear before the designers designed it, and she wasn’t far from the truth. Diana Vreeland was a huge influence on designers and just about everyone else working in or appreciating the fashion business. Her passion made her who she was—a passion sorely missed in fashion circles today.

If you have ever read any of the other so called biographies about Diana Vreeland, you need to treat yourself or someone you know to this ode to brilliance. Diana Vreeland was a force to be reckoned with: She discovered some of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, and she was always poised on the cusp of many trends, whether in art, design, or fashion.

In a way, Diana Vreeland created style, giving a skip to the heartbeat of the greatest fashion magazines. As well, she resuscitated the sleepy Metropolitan Museum of Art into a place where the contents were more relevant to living artists rather than just dead ones. She lived life her way and on her terms.

Find out! Read the book!