Înainte de Anna Wintour, Carine Roitfeld și Anne Dello Russo, a fost Diana Vreeland.

Născută la Paris în 1903, Diana Vreeland a fost martora (r)evoluției în modă în prima jumătate a secolului XX. În cealaltă jumătate, D.V. a fost cea care a inițiat tendințele perioadei, devenind o autoritate în lumea modei.

În 1936 începe să scrie pentru Harper’s Bazaar. În scurt timp, rubrica ei „De ce să nu…” o propulsează în funcția de editor de modă al revistei. În 1962, pleacă la Vogue ca redactor-șef, de unde inspiră o întreagă generație de designeri – Yves Saint Laurent, Issey Myiake și Valentino. Totodată, este cea care a susținut lansarea câtorva creatori de top din zilele noastre – Diane von Furstenberg, Oscar de la Renta și Manolo Blahnik.

În 1973 devine consultant special la Institutul Costumului din cadrul Muzeului Metropolitan de Artă din New York. A fost curator al expozițiilor de haine și costume ce aparțineau fostelor vedete de la Hollywood, companiilor de balet sau marilor creatori de modă. Diana Vreeland continuă să-i influențeze și astăzi pe cei din industria modei – designeri, jurnaliști de modă, fotografi, stiliști, bloggeri, modele.

Recent, i-am savurat viața eclectică, povestită de ea însăși în cartea D.V. Istoriile despre Parisul anilor 1930, despre o Americă atât de diferită de Europa, despre influența războiului în modă, despre prinți și prințese, Coco Chanel sau Balenciaga m-au dus într-o lume a aristocrației care nu înjosește, ci educă; a luxului care nu provoacă, ci inspiră. Împărtășesc și cu voi câteva din observațiile Dianei Vreeland care m-au inspirat. Sunt în varianta originală, pentru a păstra farmecul cuvintelor.

„When you’re young you should be a lot with yourself and your sufferings. Than one day you get out where the sun shines and the rain rains and the snow snows, and it all comes together.”

You learn from the exaggeration.

„Flirtations are part of life, part of society – if one didn’t have these little things, where would one be?”

„When people ask me about what the greatest change in my life is, I always say it is Fear – the sense of imminent physical danger that we must all live with in big cities everywhere today.”

„The ’60s were about personalities. It was the first time when the mannequins became personalities. It was a time of great goals, an inventive time… and these girls invented themselves.”

Power has got to be the most intoxicating thing in the world – and of all forms of power, the most intoxicating is fame.

„Part of my success as an editor came from never worrying about a fact, a cause, an atmosphere. It was me projecting to the public. I always had a perfectly clear view of what was possible for the public. Give ‘em what they never knew they wanted.”

„To me, the books I’ve read are the giveaway. My life has been more influenced by books than by any other one thing. The real seriousness of my youth was that I devoted myself totally to learning.”

„Stretching! I believe in that totally. I stretch in the tub, I stretch when I’m standing up. I stretch talking on the telephone… whenever you’re doing anything, if you can do something – stretch! In your spare moments, stand against a door and press your spine against it. It pulls everything in your body into place.”

Despre culori

„Red is the great clarifier – bright, cleansing, and revealing. I can’t imagine becoming bored with red – it would be like becoming bored with the person you love. All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.”

„Black is the hardest color in the world to get right – except for gray.”

„Taxicab yellow is marvelous. I often asked for taxicab-yellow background when I worked in photography studios.”

„Purple is a beautiful color. It’s associated with the church – ecclesiastical and powerful things.”

„Green, for instance, can look like the subway – but if you get the right green…. a spring green is marvelous. The green of England and the green of France are the most beautiful spring greens. The green of England is a little deeper than the green of France, a little darker…”

„Lighting is everything in a color. It’s affected by the way the sun shines in certain countries. And the farther north you go, the more sense of color you get.”

Despre Coco Chanel

„Coco Chanel was extraordinary. The alertness of the woman! The charm! You would have fallen in love with her. She was mesmerizing, strange, alarming, witty…”

„And of course she was at times impossible. She had an utterly malicious tongue. Coco was never a kind woman… she was a monstre sacré. But she was the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

„The Duke of Westminster and Grand Duke Dmitri were the two men in her life. Between them she learned everything there is to know about luxury, and no one’s ever had a greater sense of luxury than Coco Chanel.”

„From Russia she copied the Romanov pearls. Dmitri got out of Russia as the way you’d get out of a fire – but he had the pearls. He gave them to her, and she made copies of them which the women of the world have known and worn ever since, whether artificial or cultured – that long, long string…”

„A woman dressed by Chanel back in the twenties and the thirties walked into a room and had a dignity, an authority, a thing beyond a question of taste.”

When she reopened after the war, she wanted to see her suits all over the place. They say she showed the clothes to the copyists before she showed them to the customers or the press. These postwar suits of Chanel were designed God knows when, but the tailoring, the line, the shoulders, the underarms, the jupe – never too short, never making a fool of a woman when she sits down – is even today the right thing to wear.

Despre Balenciaga

„If a woman came in in a Balenciaga dress, no other woman in the room existed.”

„His voice was low, and often you had to concentrate to hear it. His first name was Cristobal. His inspiration came from the bullrings, the flamenco dancers, the loose blouses the fishermen wear, the cool of the cloisters… and he took these moods and colors and, adapting them to his own tastes, literally dressed those who cared about such things for thirty years. He loved the coquetry of lace and ribbon, and yet he believed totally in the dignity of women.”

„Balenciaga often said that women did not have to be perfect of beautiful to wear his clothes. When they wore his clothes, they became beautiful.”

Despre Revlon

When I arrived in America, I had these very dark red nails which some people objected to, but then some people object to everything

Manichiuristul din Paris al Dianei era un bărbat pe nume Perrera, despre care ea povestește că producea un lac de unghii ce se usca instantaneu. Fiind în America în perioada celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial, și i se termina ultima sticluță cu ojă, a dus-o unui bărbat care avea o afacere în producerea lacului de unghii. Acel bărbat era Charles Revson. Potrivit Dianei, formula sa originală avea o culoare minunată, dar dura ore întregi până se usca. Doar după ce acesta a studiat lacul de unghii al lui Perrera, a reușit să creeze un produs nemaiîntâlnit în America. Rămăsese doar să schimbe litera „s” din „Revson” în „l” pentru a deveni Revlon, și să se nască cel mai mare brand de cosmetice…