Through my research of eccentric people in the fashion industry, few people have struck me as much as Diana Vreeland.
She shaped how fashion stories should be created and displayed in magazines.
She believed in the art behind fashion and fashion photography instead of it just being a set of images.
She created extravagant stories for Vogue where the crew traveled to places like Japan and Russia for weeks at a time.
The results were and still are truly magnificent.
To appreciate the work that Diana did, I think it serves great purpose to look at where her life began.
Diana was born on September 29th 1903 in Paris.
Her parents were very well connected and through them she got to experience some truly amazing things along with her sister.
With World War I looming, the family emigrated to America where they settled in New York.
At the age of 19, Diana married her husband Thomas Reed Vreeland and the couple had two sons together.
Diana always had an interest in fashion and a real appreciation for true style.
She was good friends with Coco Chanel whom she adored and she would travel back and forth to Chanel's studio in Paris to buy her latest designs.
Diana's style didn't go unnoticed and she was offered a job at Harper's Bazaar by Carmel Snow.
She'd never had a job before and as she said herself she "was never dressed before lunch".
She began writing a column called "Why don't you..." which was full of fantastical ideas of extravagant ways to dress or new things to try.
One example was to wash your child's blonde hair with champagne as they do in France.
Total excess.
At that time, if a married woman had a job it was seen as being impoverish and very lower class.
Diana transformed the image of a working woman in the 1930's into something that was glamorous and very powerful.
Diana saw things differently.
She saw true style and exquisite fashion design instead of just garments and fabric.
She saw the magic that was possible and that became infectious to the people she worked with.
She worked closely with photographers like Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon and David Bailey to create some of the most powerful images the fashion and art world have ever seen.
Diana stayed at Harper's Bazaar for over 20 years but decided to move to Vogue after she was overlooked for a promotion.
She became the Editor-in-chief of Vogue for the next 12 years and her influence on the magazine was undeniable.
She became the Editor-in-chief of Vogue for the next 12 years and her influence on the magazine was undeniable.
Below are a few images from one of my favourite stories she put together.
The crew spent five weeks in Japan creating this fashion story and it's breathtaking.
Diana believed in an idea of fantasy.
She wanted to give her readers a peek into a different world that they would never experience first hand.
She wanted everything in excess and no expense was spared.
Unfortunately this in-turn led to her being fired by Vogue and it marked the end of an era for fashion.
Her influence was and still is unmistakable.
She truly shaped how we see fashion today.
She truly shaped how we see fashion today.
A documentary about Mrs.Vreeland was released in 2012, 23 years after her death and it's entitled "The eye has to travel".
I strongly recommend checking out the trailer below and next time you see a really strong fashion story in a magazine, think of Diana.
"Exaggeration is my only reality".
Diana Vreeland.
C.
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