Empress of Fashion
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CHAPTER SIX: YOUTHQUAKE
181 “Suddenly a rumour was buzzing”: Nicholas Haslam, Redeeming Features: A Memoir (London: Jonathan Cape, 2009), p. 171.
181 “It was said that her maid”: Grace Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue (New York: Doubleday, 1995), p. 103.
182 “He had a great gift”: former travel editor Despina Messinesi, quoted in Francine du Plessix Gray, Them: A Memoir of Parents (New York: Penguin—2005), p. 258.
182 a Jekyll and Hyde character: see, for instance, ibid. pp. 405–409.
183 “We had to touch out navels”: Haslam, Redeeming Features, p. 172.
183 she was mystifyingly badly dressed: sometimes Daves’s forgetfulness about what she was wearing was remarkable by any standard, let alone in the world of fashion. “Jessica used to absentmindedly chew canapés through the veils of the little black hats she always wore, creating a gooey mess of tuna fish or chopped liver, her hat gradually descending upon her face until she realized her gaffe and ran into the nearest bathroom, moaning, to clean up,” writes Gray, Them, p. 329.
183 “NO to a skirt”: Vogue, March 15, 1962, p. 93.
183 “She believed in elegance”: Valentine Lawford, Horst: His Work and His World (Harmondsworth: Viking, 1985), p. 112.
184 “the sort of woman”: Vogue, October 15, 1961, p. 112.
184 “You’ve cased the collections”: ibid., p. 75.
184 “We have thought of you so much”: Elizabeth Vreeland to DV, April 14, 1962, DVP, Box 32, Folder 10.
185 “I worried that you with your birdlike legerté”: quoted in Dwight, Diana Vreeland, p. 127.
185 “My goodness we are so proud”: Elizabeth Vreeland to DV, DVP, Box 32, Folder 6.
185 “What is fashion?”: DVP, Box 7, Folder 13. offprint dated November 20, 1962.
186 “My God, when I think of my years”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, p. 151.
187 “Diana Vreeland didn’t just sweep”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 103.
187 “The steam started coming out of my ears”: quoted in Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins, Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), p. 237.
188 “My mind drifts around a lot”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, p. 151.
188 “Whereas the entire chain”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 116.
188 “Sometimes she paid attention”: Carol Phillips to DK, DKP, p. 12.
188 “At my first run-through”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, pp. 107–8.
189 “Her tastes were as aristocratic”: ibid., p. 108.
189 “It seemed the perfect antidote”: ibid., pp. 110–13, passim.
190 “From the moment she came to Vogue”: Vogue, December 1989, p. 307.
191 “We are talking about a snake pit”: comment from someone who prefers to remain anonymous.
192 “Editing is four walls of work”: Levin, The Wheels of Fashion, p. 106.
192 “Those were terrible pictures”: Hugo Vickers, ed. Beaton in the Sixties: More Unexpurgated Diaries (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), p. 205.
192 “At Vogue I was what you might call an enfant terrible”: Vreeland, Allure, p. 134.
193 “free-wheeling school of collectors”: Vogue, August 1, 1962, pp. 66–76.
194 “In this stillness”: Vogue, January 1, 1963, p. 77.
195 “The image she presents”: Vogue, August 1, 1964, p. 43.
196 “A funny thing has happened”: ibid., p. 93.
196 “What fires his imagination”: Vogue, June 1, 1964. p. 68.
196 “Chanel started it”: Vogue, January 15, 1965, p. 45.
196 “Isn’t that life”: Weymouth, “A Question of Style,” p. 54.
197 “Being from Lancashire himself”: Haslam, Redeeming Features, p. 173.
198 “No one knew more about fashion”: Jean Shrimpton, Jean Shrimpton: An Autobiography (London: Sphere Books Ltd., 1991), p. 84.
198 “I think we are frightfully missing”: memo to Allene Talmey, n.d. but probably early 1964, DVP, Box 3, Folder 2.
198 “To women, Jagger looks fascinating”: Vogue, July 1, 1964, p. 73.
198 “I’ve known two great decades”: “Jet Setting,” DVP, Box 3, Folder 3.
199 “against everything expected of them”: Vogue, August 1, 1963, p. 75.
200 “I didn’t go much for this street-up business”: Weymouth, “A Question of Style,” p. 51.
200 “That was something”: Vreeland, D.V., p. 150.
201 “It’s possible to feel on your cheek”: Vogue, January 1, 1963, p. 77.
201 “I blurted out”: Haslam, Redeeming Features, p. 174.
202 “Aside from new topics”: Vogue, September 1, 1964, pp. 60, 82, 83, 100.
202 “There is a marvellous moment”: Vogue, January 1, 1965, p. 112.
203 “Now the body itself”: Vogue, January 1, 1965, p. 76.
203 “the body that is fashion”: Vogue, January 1, 1965, p. 73.
204 liberating women from unnatural permanents: though in reality many women still had to make frequent visits to the hair salon to have their hair straightened, blow-dried, and trimmed incessantly to keep the new geometric shapes.
204 “As I walked into her office”: Vidal Sassoon, Vidal: The Autobiography, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2010), p. 171.
205 “the spy system was incredible”: R. Avedon to DK, DKP, p. 13. Letters in the Richard Avedon Foundation files suggest that it was known he would make the move by November 1965. He wrote to one friend on December 16, 1965, that he did not have time to meet her in Paris because he was saying good-bye to people and trying to stick to a list of Vogue priorities.
205 revolutionizing the distance between photographer and model: see Jane Mulvagh, Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion (London: Bloomsbury Books, 1992), p. 240.
206 “I had this baby face”: Vera Lehndorff and David Wills, Veruschka (New York: Assouline, 2008), p. 12.
206 “ ‘Vera’ was not the person”: ibid., p. 12.
207 “Our sessions together were very intense”: ibid., p. 22.
207 “What Antonioni was saying”: ibid.
207 “Veruschka’s bones, her body”: ibid., pp. 5–7. By permission of RAF. Richard Avedon’s observations on Veruschka first appeared in “Veruschka is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World” in Vogue, June 1972.
207 “Veruschka is the only woman”: ibid., pp. 6–7. By permission of RAF.
208 “the land of Style”: See Holly Brubach, tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com 2010/02/12.
208 “He made hair expressive”: ibid.
208 “Some of the conditions were very harsh”: quoted in David Wills, Ara Gallant (Bologna: Damiani, 2010), p. 129.
208 “I said to Mrs. Vreeland”: Martin and Koda, Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style, looseleaf.
208 a hallucinogenic fashion spread: Vogue, October 15, 1966, pp. 88–175.
209 “a Heian beauty”: in Japanese history, the Heian period ran from 794 to 1185, when the Imperial capital was based at Heian-kyo, modern day Kyoto.
210 “She has the concentration of a child”: Lehndorff and Wills, Veruschka, p. 5. By permission of RAF.
210 “There are times during a sitting”: ibid., p. 7. By permission of RAF.
210 “It’s without content”: Richard Avedon to DK, DKP, p. 16.
210 “You looked like a victim”: DV to Veruschka, DVP, Box 9, Folder 5.
211 “Jets were brand new”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, p. 151.
211 “All over the world”: “Jet Setting,” DVP, Box 3, Folder 3.
211 “Flaunting bare feet and legs”: Valerie Steele, Fashion, Italian Style (New York: Fashion Institute of Technology), 2003, p. 27.
212 “an oasis of high style”: ibid., p. 36.
212 Di
ana appointed Consuelo Crespi: Countess Consuelo Crespi (1928–2010) was twin sister of Gloria Schiff, and a New York model before she married Count Rodolfo Crespi in 1948. An elegant society figure, she became an important tastemaker in her own right as a fashion PR and editor of Italian Vogue, with considerable impact on the careers of Italian couturiers such as Fendi, Missoni, and Valentino.
212 “India has given a new freedom”: Vogue, December 1, 1964, p. 195. The article ran on pp. 194–215, 277–80, and 282–85.
213 “Vreeland made fashion out of her dreams”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 117.
213 “The impressionable manufacturers are wooed”: Marilyn Bender, Beautiful People: A Candid Examination of a Cultural Phenomenon—the Marriage of Fashion and Society in the 60’s (New York: Coward-McCann, 1967), pp. 215–16.
214 “The East drew them”: quoted in Anne Boston, Lesley Blanch: Inner Landscapes, Wilder Shores (London: John Murray, 2010), p. 120.
214 “Wilder Shores opened up far horizons”: ibid., p. 121.
214 “At last I have visited your Liotards”: Elizabeth Vreeland, postcard of a Liotard to DV, March 1956, DVP, Box 32, Folder 6.
214 “my complete inspiration”: DV, Vogue memo, April 15, 1965, DVP, Box 6, Folder 11.
215 “in the East”: Lesley Blanch quoting Gérard de Nerval in Vogue, April 15, 1965, p. 107.
215 “it follows that both the home and the woman”: ibid., p. 111.
215 “You will notice”: DV, Vogue memo, April 15, 1965, DVP, Box 6, Folder 11.
215 “to charm the sheik at home”: Vogue, April 15, 1965, p. 101.
215 In 1964 Freck was posted to Rabat: he eventually became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East (1991–92) and then U.S. Ambassador to Morocco (1992–93) by which time he had ceased all contact with the CIA.
215 “Women relaxing into caftans”: Vogue, July 1, 1966, p. 67.
216 “All float, nothing static”: Vogue, September 15, 1966, p. 330.
216 “She was the first editor to say to me”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP.
216 “You have no idea”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, pp. 151 and 152.
216 seeing the vaudeville performer Joe Frisco on a train: Vreeland, D.V., p. 153.
216 “ ‘Use all the Dynel you want’ ”: Norman Parkinson, Lifework (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983), p. 112.
217 “For inspiration Mrs. Vreeland showed me an 18th century French picture”: quoted in Amy Fine Collins, “It Had to Be Kenneth,” Vanity Fair, June 2003, p. 153.
217 “I was in the middle of my Dynel period then”: Vreeland, D.V., pp. 153–54.
217 In Parkinson’s version of what happened next: Parkinson, Lifework. p. 113.
217 “Now, apparently, if you go near a certain part of the anatomy”: Vreeland, D.V., p. 152.
218 “hadn’t seen a lady in eight years”: quoted in Collins, “It Had to Be Kenneth,” p. 153.
218 “Mrs. Vreeland was always in there”: Parkinson, Lifework, p. 114.
218 “creative and warm-hearted human beings”: Horst and Valentine Lawford, Vogue’s Book of Houses, Gardens, People (London: The Bodley Head, 1968), introduction by Diana Vreeland, p. i.
219 all the costs of running the apartment: Discovery Proceeding, In the Matter of the Application of Fiduciary Trust Company of New York as executor of the Last Will and Testament of T. Reed Vreeland, Surrogate’s Court: County of New York, February 27, 1968, testimony of Madeleine E. Wilson, pp. 14–16.
219 “It’s always been men with feminine streaks”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 3.
220 “A highly emotional French lady”: Vreeland, D.V., pp. 163–64.
220 “Woman should be a creature”: Florence Pritchett Smith, These Entertaining People (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 1.
220 “Arrange a quiet room”: Florence Pritchett Smith, These Entertaining People, pp. 50-51.
221 I said, ‘What do you take my husband for’ : Vreeland, D.V., p. 169.
222 “Reed died loving Yvonne more than anything”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, p. 169.
222 “The terrible thing was”: ibid.
CHAPTER SEVEN: WILDER SHORES
223 “She was so brave”: Carol Phillips to DK, DKP, p. 13.
223 “She was the wife”: Weymouth, “A Question of Style,” p. 54.
223 “Some may see Charles Engelhard”: Vickers, Beaton in the Sixties, p. 205.
224 “the fantasy of foreign lands”: FIT exhibition, 2009.
225 “Astonishingly friendly”: Blass, Bare Blass, p. 95. Nicholas Haslam also remembered Reed’s kindness: “You’d be feeling uncomfortable at some rather grand and intimidating party—and then you’d see Reed winking at you across the room.”
225 “Those were the evenings I loved most with her”: Blass, Bare Blass, p. 95.
225 “She never had a sense of time”: ibid.
225 a “knuckle sandwich”: ibid., p. 58.
225 “She was an amalgam of stories”: ibid., p. 96.
227 boutique design: “Quant sold well in New York, Tuffin & Foale was stocked in Paraphernalia, Betsey Johnson was available in Bazaar. In London Barbara Hulanicki opened a new boutique called Biba, a treasure chest of the new romanticism. In Paris Khanh was designing for the ready-to-wear house Cacharel, and the nautical theme launched by Saint Laurent in the spring—reefer coats, more pea jackets, bell-bottom trousers, and T-shirt dresses—was copied for the ready-to-wear by Bagatel.” Mulvagh, Vogue History of Twentieth-Century Fashion, p. 291.
229 “kind of fashion American women live in”: Vogue, May 1, 1967, p. 198.
229 a wider process of liberalization: see Alan Petigny, The Permissive Society: America, 1941–1965, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 282.
229 “On the whole, fashion had become less a matter of designer diktat”: Valerie Mendes and Amy de la Haye, 20th Century Fashion (London: Thames & Hudson, 1999), p. 192.
229 “It’s your show”: Vogue, July 1968, p. 35.
229 “You take the most discreet black sweater”: ibid.
230 “Invent yourself”: Vogue, January 1, 1969, p. 79.
230 “I was saved by the 60s”: Richard Avedon to DK, DKP, p. 16.
230 “The girl herself is the extravaganza”: Vogue, March 15, 1967, p. 63.
230 “a broad”: Richard Avedon to DK, DKP, p. 16.
230 a stepfather who wanted her out of the house : interview in Venice Magazine, November 2007/http://thehollywoodinterview.blogspot.com.
231 “You. You have quite a presence”: Derek Blasberg, Harper’s Bazaar, January 13, 2011. www.harpersbazaar.com.
232 Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball: Diana’s invitation to Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball was, of course, never in doubt, though reports vary as to how long she was there, with at least one friend insisting that she slipped away after the Trees’ dinner party and never went at all because she missed Reed so badly that evening. Ostensibly thrown by Capote to celebrate the success of In Cold Blood, he turned the ball into one of New York’s great who’s-in-who’s-out events. He changed the guest list incessantly, making, as he later said, five hundred friends and fifteen hundred enemies.
232 “She was gawky”: quoted in Kennedy Fraser, introd. On the Edge: Images from 100 Years of Vogue (New York: Random House), 1992, p. 148.
232 “I am really fascinated by how beautifully built she is”: memo from Diana Vreeland to Richard Avedon with cc. Polly Mellen. “RE: Penelope Tree.” June 12, 1967 (The Richard Avedon Foundation archive, New York).
232 “She projects the spirit of the hour”: Vogue, October 1, 1967, p. 163.
233 “Penelope Tree is the girl of her dreams”: Vogue, January 15, 1968, p. 38.
233 Tree’s upbringing was almost as unhappy as Diana’s: Louise France, interview
with Penelope Tree: “People thought I was a freak; I kind of liked that,” The Observer, August 3, 2008.
234 “The call from Vreeland”: Twiggy Lawson, Twiggy in Black and White (London: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 68.
234 Mona Bismarck: Mona Harrison Williams married her long-standing gay friend Count Edward von Bismarck, known as Eddie, after the death of Harrison Williams in 1953.
234 “Mona didn’t come out of her room”: quoted in Lesley Ellis Miller, Cristóbal Balenciaga: The Couturiers’ Couturier (London: V&A, 2007), p. 87.
235 Diana dispatched Veruschka: Diana, unusually, was with them in the North African desert in 1967 when Ara Gallant wove a colossal silver-and-green wig of Dynel braids around and around Veruschka’s face for specially designed fashions by Strega. After that Diana trusted the team implicitly.
235 Exuberantly original, he liked to ornament the body: see Caroline Rennolds Milbank, New York Fashion: The Evolution of American Style, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989), p. 231.
235 “We took fabrics, cords, tools, pins”: Lehndorff and Wills, Veruschka, p.19.
235 “At some point, I fainted”: ibid.
236 “There was a time”: quoted in Vogue, August 1, 1966, p. 86.
236 “For [many] people”: Petigny, The Permissive Society, p. 221.
236 “The fact is”: See Vogue, May 1, 1967, p. 159.
237 “I think people who lunch don’t work”: DV to DK, DKP, p. 2.
238 Memos streamed in: the memos quoted here come from someone who prefers to remain anonymous, Grace Mirabella, Visionaire 37: Vreeland Memos (New York: Visionaire, 2001) (no page numbers) and DVP, Box 6, Folder 17. Several memos quoted here are duplicated across these sources.
238 “these pieces of hair dipped in salad oil”: memo from Diana Vreeland to Richard Avedon, with cc Polly Mellen, July 14, 1967 (The Richard Avedon Foundation archive, New York).
239 “There are only a handful of magazines”: Meriel McCooey, “Why don’t you knit yourself a little skullcap?” Sunday Times, March 17, 1968.
241 “The Americans have created Viet Nam anew”: Vogue, May 1, 1967, p. 260. The other two articles by FitzGerald appeared in the January 1, 1967, issue (“The Long Fear: Fresh Eyes On Viet Nam”) and the February 1, 1967, issue (“The Power Set: The Fragile But Dominating Women of Viet Nam”).