Empress of Fashion

October 29, 2012
Adored by some and thought abrasive and disagreeable by others, fashion icon Diana Vreeland and her psyche and cultural milieu are superbly deconstructed by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart (Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and Mother in the Gilded Age). Vreeland (1903–1989) was fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar and later the infamous editor-in-chief of Vogue during the tumultuous 1960s. Told she was ugly by her troubled and beautiful mother, Vreeland escaped into a private fantasy world. Her creation of an idealized image she called the Girl, coupled with a creative flair “and the development of an idiosyncratic way with words,” propelled Vreeland into becoming one of the most influential tastemakers in American fashion. Photos by Richard Avedon, snapped around the world from the Arctic Circle to the Far East, paired with “Youthquake” fashions modeled by Jean Shrimpton and Veruschka, exposed readers to new ways of seeing fashion and the world. Vreeland possessed that rare sense for the next “it” object, person, or music style of the moment. “She looked instead for trends, particularly those that played themselves out through fashion and she put her own stamp on the decade as she did so.” Stuart’s biography is a tasty and erudite study of a complicated woman and her turbulent and colorful cultural life and times.