241 “Black nationalism was wonderful afros”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 129.
241 “You read revolution in clothes”: Weymouth, “A Question of Style,” p. 49
241 “People Are Talking About”: Vogue, June 1, 1965, p. 94.
242 “To roam the earth”: Vogue, April 15, 1969, p. 52.
242 “You go your own way”: Vogue, July 1, 1970, p. 51.
242 an exceptional wardrobe of couture clothes: an exhibition of ensembles and accessories from Mrs. Taylor’s wardrobe, Fashion Independent: The Original Style of Ann Bonfoey Taylor, took place at the Phoenix Art Museum from February to May 2011.
242 “It’s all very confusing”: transcript of the conversation between DV and Mrs. Vernon Taylor, DVP, Box 6, Folder 2.
244 “Oh Betty Friedan”: Vogue, March 15, 1966, pp. 92–93.
245 “I believe women are naturally dependent on men”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 3.
245 “The feminine side of so many men”: Ibid.
245 “How free can you get?”: Lieberson, “Empress of Fashion,” p. 25.
245 “If that’s the case, my dear”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 3.
246 “Rosemary, don’t forget”: telegram from DV to Rosemary Blackmon, “RE Accompanying text in March 15,” February 2, 1968 (The Richard Avedon Foundation archive, New York).
246 “Pride of body”: Vogue, September 15, 1967, p. 131.
247 “Nureyev, here in an agony of action”: Vogue, December 1967, p. 210.
247 captured at a memorable shoot: the December 1967 spread contained photos of Nureyev by Richard Avedon from sittings in 1961/2 and 1967. Avedon took nude photographs of Nureyev at both of them. It is not clear when Diana visited the studio, but it was most unusual and more likely to have happened while she was still at Bazaar in 1961/2.
247 “You know how it is with men”: Andrew Solomon, “Invitation to the Dance,” Vogue, November 2007, p. 114.
247 “To me, the Pill was the turning point”: Lieberson, “Empress of Fashion,” p. 28.
248 changing female identiy: see, for instance, Vogue, January 1, 1967, pp. 128–33.
248 Women who saw sexual liberation differently: see Carolyn Bronstein, Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976–1986 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 30–31.
249 “Who’s So Liberated?”: Vogue, September 1, 1970, pp. 382, 383, 422, 423.
249 “the true impact of an unforgettable woman”: ibid., p. 390.
250 “In my opinion in the year 2001”: DVP, Box 6, Folder 17, and Visionaire 37, no page numbers.
251 “I mean [at Vogue], we’re asked to help”: transcript of the conversation between DV and Mrs. Vernon Taylor, DVP, Box 6, Folder 2.
251 “exacting in her facts and her purposes”: Vogue, May 1, 1967, p. 174.
251 “They’ve been to the best schools”: transcript of the conversation between DV and Mrs. Vernon Taylor, DVP, Box 6, Folder 2.
252 “She never wants to be first”: ibid.
252 “can easily be compared”: Visionaire 37: Vreeland Memos.
253 Vogue’s losses became catastrophic: midmarket magazines fared better, but Bazaar did badly too, with a drop of 37 percent.
253 “In a funny way”: Carol Phillips to DK, DKP, p. 9.
254 “Vogue was high drama”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 120.
254 “She should have taken more care, George”: Diana to George Plimpton, Diana Vreeland Tapes, Tape 6.
254 “She wouldn’t listen”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 694.
254 “You never had any peace”: Carrie Donovan to DK, DKP, p. 9.
255 “Inventing a look like . . . ‘Scheherazade’ ”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, pp. 131–2.
255 “The next morning they found the Peruvian army waiting”: ibid., p. 133.
255 ‘Oh, I know how to handle those boys’: Carrie Donovan to DK, DKP, p. 9.
256 “Her world”: quoted in D.V., p. 173.
256 “I used to beg her”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 138.
256 Alex and Si Newhouse: Alex Liberman and Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr. The latter, known as “Si,” was son of the newspaper tycoon Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. who bought Condé Nast Publications in 1959. Si Newhouse became Publisher of Vogue in 1964.
256 “whole sort of court of admirers”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 692 and p. 852.
257 Avedon took a tough line: Richard Avedon to DK, DKP, pp. 15–16.
257 “Frankly, they’re both very strong personalities”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 852.
257 “I think it struck her as an efficiency”: Carol Philips to DK, DKP, p. 13.
257 “She was given too much power”: Kazanjian and Tomkins, Alex, p. 281
257 “were stronger than they should be”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 884.
257 “The extremes of her taste”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 691.
258 “I tell you the truth”: Carol Phillips to DK, DKP, pp. 13–14.
259 “And we sat there”: Si Newhouse to DK, DKP, p. 43.
259 “a yellow rat”: Lerman, The Grand Surprise, p. 405.
260 “My recollection of Dianne”: Si Newhouse to DK, DKP, p. 45.
260 A fashion editor should be “much, much younger”: Babs Simpson to DK and to Amanda Mackenzie Stuart.
260 “She herself was becoming older”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 129 and p. 138.
263 Rumors flew: Cecil Beaton was convinced that Margaret Case was “dreadfully upset at the sacking of Diana and the direction in which Vogue was going, headed by a lot of ghastly go-getting animals” and that it sent her into a depression from which she never recovered. See Hugo Vickers, ed., The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as They Were Written (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002), p. 195.
263 “ashamed and afraid”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 141.
264 “I was so frightened I could hardly speak”: Colin McDowell, Manolo Blahnik (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), p. 84. Manolo Blahnik was always grateful to Diana. He visited her at 550 Park Avenue whenever he was in New York and long after he became successful. However, he never quite got over his awe of her. “Don’t be terrified! This isn’t Vogue any more, you know,” she was wont to say (McDowell, Manolo Blahnik. p. 86).
264 She continued to write memos: Grace Mirabella, Visionaire 37: Vreeland Memos, and DVP, Box 6, Folder 17. Again, memos quoted here are from more than one source.
264 “I am not proud”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, p. 141.
265 “This has been a very curious autumn”: DVP, Box 5, Folder 2.
265 “ingenious, clever little bug”: DV to Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Patterson, April 27, 1972, DVP, Box 4, Folder 21.
265 “To hear someone say that Diana Vreeland is a positive thinker”: Lieberson, “Empress of Fashion,” p. 28. Norman Vincent Peale was a preacher and author of The Power of Positive Thinking, which has sold millions of copies since its publication in 1952 and is still in print.
265 “It seems to be a long Valentino parade”: DVP, Box 6, Folder 15. “Jackie, Audrey, and Babe” were, of course, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Audrey Hepburn, and Babe Paley.
266 “I happen to have a very beautiful room”: DV to Norman Norell, thanking him for “dozens of perfectly beautiful white roses,” April 20, 1972, DVP, Box 4, Folder 17.
CHAPTER EIGHT: OLD CLOTHES
267 “moribund,” “gray” and “dying”: Thomas Hoving, Making the Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p. 32.
267 He caused a stir: ibid., p. 275.
268 he hired . . . Eleanor Lambert: ibid., p. 49.
268 He soon discovered that this was not a good idea: ibid., p. 133.<
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269 “He came to see me”: Vreeland, D.V., p. 175.
269 a group of Diana’s most powerful friends: DVP, Box 11, Folder 6.
270 all Diana’s friends who agreed to support her paid up: ibid.
270 For all this she would receive: ibid.
270 “I have been rebuilding my life”: DVP, Box 4, Folder 7.
270 “I am ecstatically happy”: DVP, Box 10, Folders 4.
270 “Life is a fine performance”: Diana”s engagement diary, August 13, 1972, DVP, Box 48, Folder 3.
271 As she recollected the affair: DVP, Box 14, Folder 3.
271 “It was like a small court”: Hugo Vickers, Behind Closed Doors: The Tragic Untold Story of the Duchess of Windsor (London: Hutchinson, 2011), p. 45.
272 “Please forgive me tracking you down”: DVP, Box 12, Folder 2.
273 “Please Pauline do not be bored”: DVP, Box 12, Folder 2.
273 “Everyone loves and adores Balenciaga”: DV to Cecil Beaton, October 6, 1972, DVP, Box 12, Folder 2.
274 “I am now beginning to wonder”: ibid.
274 “Things moving very slowly in Europe”: DVP, Box 10, Folder 4.
274 a “baby-doll” dress: see Miller, Balenciaga, p. 39. Diana may have misdated her “baby-doll” dress. Miller suggests the design appeared from 1958.
275 Curatorial staff looked on appalled: See Dwight, Diana Vreeland, p. 210.
276 “She’d never say what it needed”: Jesse Kornbluth, “The Empress of Clothes,” p. 35.
276 Press reaction was favorable: see for instance “The Era of Balenciaga: It Seems So Long Ago,” Bernadine Morris, New York Times, March 23, 1973.
277 making the CFDA a benefactor: Michael Gross, Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum (New York: Broadway Books, 2009), pp. 375–76.
277 “It was basically Seventh Avenue”: ibid., p. 209.
278 costs were covered before it opened: figures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives.
279 managed to tear their eyes away: see Bernadine Morris “This Show Will have the Most Shattering Effect on Fashion,” New York Times, December 14, 1973.
280 stunned by the Vionnet dresses: ibid.
280 “The foremost accomplishments of Halston”: Martin and Koda, Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style, p. 17.
280 “She uttered one word”: Hoving, Making the Mummies Dance, p. 355.
281 “The basis was perfect designing”: Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design, exhibition catalog (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974), n.p.
282 “That’s the best advice”: Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design, audioguide (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974).
282 “It is about the dreams”: quoted in Vogue, December 1974, p. 169.
284 Tonne Goodman and André Leon Talley: at the time of going to press in 2012, Goodman is fashion director of American Vogue, and Talley is a contributing editor.
284 “She was a solo pageant”: André Leon Talley, A.L.T.: A Memoir (New York: Villard Books, 2003), p. 156.
285 “Well, first of all we knock off all the bosoms”: George Trow, “Haute, Haute Couture,” The New Yorker, May 26, 1975.
286 “No curator in the history of the Met”: Hoving, Making the Mummies Dance, p. 354.
286 “When people ask me”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, p. 108.
286 They set off to the cinema: as recounted in Andy Warhol’s diaries, in Kornbluth, “Empress of Style,” and Kenneth Jay Lane to Amanda Mackenzie Stuart.
287 “This is a working man’s town”: Diana in conversation with Henry Geldzahler in “The Empress and the Commissioner.”
287 “In the space of twenty minutes”: draft of an anonymous article, DVP, Box 63, Folder 6.
287 “I was never an embassy girl”: George W. S. Trow and Alison Rose, “Eclectic, Reminiscent, Amused, Fickle, Perverse,” The New Yorker, June 5, 1978, p. 77.
288 “He had lots of liquor”: The Andy Warhol Diaries, ed. Pat Hackett (London: Simon and Schuster, 1989), Friday, January 6, 1978, p. 94.
288 “It really becomes more like pagan Rome”: quoted in Bob Colacello, Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), p. 352.
288 “Supplicating figures”: Lerman, The Grand Surprise, p. 437.
288 “Mick is the most attractive man in New York”: Trow and Rose, “Eclectic, Reminiscent, Amused, Fickle, Perverse,” The New Yorker, p. 81.
288 “You’re so lucky you’re a wop”: Colacello, Holy Terror, p. 291.
289 found Diana’s anti-Semitic tone extremely distasteful: see Richard Avedon to Calvin Tomkins, Tomkins, II.A.108. MoMa Archives, N.Y., p. 4.
290 the interior designer Sister Parish: “Sister” was a nickname. She was not a nun with a talent for interior decoration.
291 “Despite the underlying ambivalence”: Colacello, Holy Terror, p.292.
293 “a true expression of her own”: Talley, A.L.T., p. 171.
293 “on the common ground of excellence”: American Women of Style, exhibition catalog (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975), n.p.
293 “When I’d been in Russia”: Vreeland, D.V., p. 184.
294 “A minute before eleven”: Hoving, Making the Mummies Dance, p. 355.
294 “The Russians blinked first.” Hoving, ibid. p. 356.
294 “She would praise lavishly”: ibid.
295 “We have to—ummm—consult”: George Trow, “Notes and Comment,” The New Yorker, December 20, 1976, p. 27.
296 “the biggest one of these things”: Warhol Diaries, Monday, December 6, 1976, p. 5.
296 “The trick of having a regal New York social life”: Trow, “Notes and Comment,” Dec. 20, 1976, p. 27.
CHAPTER NINE: ENDGAME
297 “This thing about being recognized”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, p. 191. An edited version appears in D.V., pp. 193-94.
297 “society, with its foibles”: Vanity Fair, exhibition catalog (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977), n.p.
297 “was what she believed a magazine should be”: Martin and Koda, Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style, p. 21.
298 “Why? Because we are not presenting an anthology”: Vanity Fair, ibid., n.p.
298 “These incredibly beautiful things”: ibid.
298 “The truest reflection of Vreeland’s commitment”: Martin and Koda, Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style, p. 22.
298 “from a rarefied world”: Vanity Fair, n.p.
299 “Do not be too hard on vanity”: ibid.
299 media magnate Jocelyn Stevens: in the early part of his newspaper career (1957–8) Sir Jocelyn Stevens CVO was chairman of Stevens Press and editor of Queen Magazine (UK), while Diana was at Harper’s Bazaar and editor in chief of Vogue.
299 “We all have our dreams”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, pp. 192–93.
299 “I take my cue”: George Trow, “Women of Style” The New Yorker, December 29, 1975, p. 15.
300 “My first impression of Mrs. Vreeland”: Vreeland, Allure, p. 7.
300 “Once, during a rare conversational lapse”: ibid., p. 9.
301 “Never say I”: ibid., p. 7.
301 “Does anyone read a picture book from the beginning?”: Vreeland, Allure, p. 13.
301 “This has got to be”: ibid., p. 89.
301 Allure captured Diana’s views: ibid.: “A good photograph,” p. 24; “They catch something unintended,” p. 24; “A nose without strength,” p. 60; “the only avant-garde,” p. 50; “Blue jeans are the only things” p. 202; “don’t let me go grand on you,” p. 33; “The two greatest mannequins,” p. 127; “Elegance is refusal,” p. 203; Deborah Turbeville’s “worn-out” girls, p. 56; “Really we should forget all this nonsense,” p. 207.
302 “Diana Vreeland called”: Warhol
Diaries, Tuesday, December 2, 1980, p. 346.
303 Diana was much less pleased: Diana Vreeland Tapes, Tape 19.
303 MacBride was ill suited to the task: “Of course I understand that it is impossible for you to write about someone that doesn’t quite come through to you,” wrote Diana politely on January 26, 1973 (private collection). But she was still annoyed in March when she spoke to Leo Lerman just before the opening of the Balenciaga exhibition, inadvertently clarifying a relationship about which Lerman had been curious. “How can he do that to a friend? Twenty years of friendship—sending that man to work with me—such a middle-class man—not anywhere in the limits of Truman’s world—so dull—the father of five children—and Truman taking him away—in love with him!” Lerman, The Grand Surprise, p. 383.
304 “Did I tell you”: Vreeland, D.V., pp. 195–96.
304 “Also a book for Queen Elizabeth”: DVP, Box 14, Folder 10.
305 “should talk to Fred”: Warhol Diaries, Sunday, September 25, 1977, p. 73.
305 “All the way down in the cab”: Warhol Diaries, Wednesday, November 9, 1977, p. 88.
305 “She thinks Fred’s making it with Lacey”: Warhol Diaries, Sunday, May 28, 1978, p. 137. Lacey Neuhaus was an outstandingly beautiful model and actress who was close to the Warhol inner circle. She appeared on the cover of Interview in November, 1979.
305 “She and I had had several talks”: Colacello, Holy Terror, p. 432.
306 “Style was more than surface”: ibid., p. 433.
306 “She started screaming and belting me”: Warhol Diaries, Wednesday, February 15, 1978, p. 111.
306 “running and jumping”: ibid., Saturday, February 25, 1978, p. 113.
307 “I never thought”: quoted in Colacello, Holy Terror, p. 454.
307 She caused a sensation: story told by Oscar de la Renta at Diana’s memorial service 1989 and reproduced in Martin and Koda, Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style, looseleaf.
308 Her glass of neat vodka: Bruce Chatwin, What Am I Doing Here? (London: Jonathan Cape, 1989), p. 79.
308 “the grandest memory”: Martin and Koda, Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style, pp. 7–8.
309 “Diaghilev created theatrical magic”: Nesta Macdonald, “Diaghilev Retrieved,” Dance Magazine, March 1979, p. 79.
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