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"An evening with D.V. is almost as marvelous as an evening with D.V. [herself]-same magic, same spontaneity and, above all, never a boring moment." -Bill Blass D.V. is the mesmerizing autobiography of one of the 20th century's greatest fashion icons, Diana Vreeland, the one-time fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar and editor-in-chief of Vogue, whose incomparable style-sense, genius, and flair helped define the world of haute couture for fifty years. The incomparable D.V. proves herself a show more brilliant raconteur as she carries the reader along on her whirlwind life-from English palaces to the nightclubs of Paris in the 1930s to the heart of New York high society, hobnobbing with everyone who was anyone, from Queen Mary to Clark Gable to Coco Chanel. show lessTags
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I really adored this book. It's not written. Instead, it's rather obvious that the editors, George Plimpton and Christopher Hemphill, just sat down with Mrs. Vreeland and let her talk, and then pretty much transcribed the conversation as it had happened. And, boy, can she talk! A mile a minute is a conservative estimate. You zip through this book because you find yourself reading it as quickly as it was said. And it's full of italics! Vreeland's excitement and enthusiasm for whatever it is she's talking about are evident on the page.
What a life she led. Raised in a rawther social family, in London and Paris and New York, she married banker Reed Vreeland at the age of nineteen, and he was clearly the love of her life. She knew everyone, show more from Josephine Baker to Jacqueline Onassis with the Windsors in between, practically invented red, was fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar for twenty-six years and editor-in-chief at Vogue for eight, and ended her career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute.
Remarks like "Unshined shoes are the end of civilization" and the famous "Pink is the navy blue of India" make Vreeland seem superficial. And, indeed, she herself said that she adored artifice. But she was also a very insightful, practical, intelligent and hard-working woman. She rightly says that the books one has read are the way you find out about a person. And although she says, "I stopped reading -- seriously reading -- years ago", she can talk about Tolstoy and kept The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon next to her bed. (More on Vreeland's books.)
If Chanel brought fashion kicking and screaming into the 20th-century, it was Vreeland (who adored and patronized Chanel) who made it part of the life of the woman-on-the-street. show less
What a life she led. Raised in a rawther social family, in London and Paris and New York, she married banker Reed Vreeland at the age of nineteen, and he was clearly the love of her life. She knew everyone, show more from Josephine Baker to Jacqueline Onassis with the Windsors in between, practically invented red, was fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar for twenty-six years and editor-in-chief at Vogue for eight, and ended her career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute.
Remarks like "Unshined shoes are the end of civilization" and the famous "Pink is the navy blue of India" make Vreeland seem superficial. And, indeed, she herself said that she adored artifice. But she was also a very insightful, practical, intelligent and hard-working woman. She rightly says that the books one has read are the way you find out about a person. And although she says, "I stopped reading -- seriously reading -- years ago", she can talk about Tolstoy and kept The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon next to her bed. (More on Vreeland's books.)
If Chanel brought fashion kicking and screaming into the 20th-century, it was Vreeland (who adored and patronized Chanel) who made it part of the life of the woman-on-the-street. show less
This autobiography is one of those books that grows on you. It is very entertaining and charmingly told. Diana Vreeland, fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar and editor in chief at Vogue, lived a charmed life in many ways. She hobnobbed with celebs, designers, royalty, etc her whole life. She knew how to get in the door just about anywhere. Of course, she is known to have used hyberbole regularly and to tell stories that were questionable in their veracity. You can take a cynical view of that character or you can relax and enjoy the tales she tells. There isn't much substance in this memoir, but its good waiting room reading, if you know what I mean.
Diana is a captivating character..almost fictional. Yet her stories are of encounters with show more real people, commentary that you might not otherwise hear. Born in Paris to wealthy socialite family, she was exposed to a wide variety of people in the fashion, literary and and performance art scene at the turn of the centruy.
"Naturally, I've always been mad about clothes. You don't get born in Paris to forget about clothes for a minute.And what clothes I saw in the Bois! I realize now I saw the whole beginning of our centruy there. Everythig was new."
My favorite chapter is her discussion of color. Looking for a green background she once described her imagined color as billiard-table green. When she was unsatisfied with all the attempts to produce the "right" color, including an actual table felt, she reportedly said "Not a billiard table, the idea of a billiard table." Those of us who work with color daily totally get this statement. The idea of a color is what we try to communicate when writing copy for our fabrics. To me color is a very living concept, not a flat chip on a piece of paper. I had a virtual "moment" with Diana when I read this part of the book.
I also loved her descriptions of her trips to Chanel, her commentary on fashion in the 30's and her remembrances of other fashion icons, especially Balenciaga.
Being recognized in the street for my involvement in fashion is truly fantastic. It amazes me every time. I mean, I've been recognized by cab drivers. I just can't get over it. I've given this a lot of thought, and I think that it's because fashion must be even stranger than the lure of the stage. i really have come to that conclusion. Fashion must be the most intoxicating release form the banality of the world." show less
Diana is a captivating character..almost fictional. Yet her stories are of encounters with show more real people, commentary that you might not otherwise hear. Born in Paris to wealthy socialite family, she was exposed to a wide variety of people in the fashion, literary and and performance art scene at the turn of the centruy.
"Naturally, I've always been mad about clothes. You don't get born in Paris to forget about clothes for a minute.And what clothes I saw in the Bois! I realize now I saw the whole beginning of our centruy there. Everythig was new."
My favorite chapter is her discussion of color. Looking for a green background she once described her imagined color as billiard-table green. When she was unsatisfied with all the attempts to produce the "right" color, including an actual table felt, she reportedly said "Not a billiard table, the idea of a billiard table." Those of us who work with color daily totally get this statement. The idea of a color is what we try to communicate when writing copy for our fabrics. To me color is a very living concept, not a flat chip on a piece of paper. I had a virtual "moment" with Diana when I read this part of the book.
I also loved her descriptions of her trips to Chanel, her commentary on fashion in the 30's and her remembrances of other fashion icons, especially Balenciaga.
Being recognized in the street for my involvement in fashion is truly fantastic. It amazes me every time. I mean, I've been recognized by cab drivers. I just can't get over it. I've given this a lot of thought, and I think that it's because fashion must be even stranger than the lure of the stage. i really have come to that conclusion. Fashion must be the most intoxicating release form the banality of the world." show less
So far, this is written totally in the voice and character of Diana Vreeland. However, it makes sense when you watch her document, when you pair the character of her words with the physical person. It does not work as well in writing. I can imagine the words with her character, and they are not interesting early in the book. It just works better to experience Vreeland in a documentary.
— Rebecca
— Rebecca
It is rather like a very interesting conversation! Vreeland drops names and anecdotes with great relish - and it's all fascinating. Gives us a taste of what it must be like to be able to travel in those rarified circles. Sort of like a taste of _Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous_, but with a definite edge.
Although I don't think this narrator is reliable, this 'autobiography' is a fascinating read if you enjoy this period in history.
The ever effervescent DV. Stylish, witty and armed with joi de vive; she wrote for Vogue and Harper's Bazzar. A fashion trailblazer and an indomitable woman who lived life to the fullest, opening her mind and heart to the world of art and fashion. A real role model.
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George Ames Plimpton was born March 18, 1927. He was educated first at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and then spent four years at Harvard majoring in English and editing the Harvard Lampoon, followed by two at King's College, Cambridge. Before he left for Cambridge, he served as a tank driver in Italy for the U.S. Army from 1945 show more through 1948. After graduation, at about 27 years of age, Plimpton went with his friends to Paris. There they founded the Paris Review in 1953 and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. In the '50s, Plimpton and staff came to New York, where they kept the Review going for half a century. The Review has published over 150 issues. Plimpton also served as a volunteer for Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential run and was walking in front of him as the candidate was assassinated in the kitchen of a Los Angeles hotel. Plimpton was known as a "participatory journalist". In order to research his books and articles, he quarterbacked in a pre-season NFL game, pitched to several all-stars (retiring Willie Mays and Richie Ashburn) in an exhibition prior to Baseball's 1959 All-Star game, performed as a trapeze artist for the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus, and fought boxers Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson. Plimpton was alson known by the nickname the Prince of Cameos for the amount of work he did in films, playing small parts and screenwriting. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2002. Within a month of the academy induction, the French made him a Chevalier, the Legion of Honor's highest rank. The Guild, an arts organization based on Long Island, gave him a lifetime achievement award. Plimpton was also a member of PEN; the Pyrotechnics Guild International; the National Football League Alumni Association; and the Mayflower Descendants Society. In 2003, Plimpton decided to write his memoirs, signing a $750,000 deal with Little, Brown and Co. Before he could finish, George Plimpton died, on September 26, 2003 of natural causes at the age of 76. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Is abridged in
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1984
- People/Characters
- Diana Vreeland
- First words
- I loathe nostalgia.
- Quotations
- You ask if they were happy. That is not the characteristic of a European. To be contented—that’s for the cows.
I mean, a new dress doesn’t get you anywhere; it’s the life you’re living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later.
What’s that terrible phrase one used to hear? “Relate,” as in “relate to.” People were always relating to themselves, and that’s where they went wrong.
I adore shepherd’s pie. I could eat it forever. I love kedgeree—bubbling, spouting, sizzling!
Asparagus should be sexy and almost fluid…
Have I told you that I think water is God’s tranquilizer? Being part Scottish, I think to walk in the rain is just divine. I don’t mean to walk around in a heavy downpour—to enjoy a fire doesn’t mean the whole room h... (show all)as to be in flames—but to be in water, to feel it around you, to wake up in the morning to know that the skies and the whole world are in this lovely fresh clean condition… always was a mania with me. One thing I hold against Americans is that they have no flair for the rain. They seem unsettled by it; it’s against them: they take it as an assault, an inconvenience! But rain is so wonderfully cleansing, so refreshing, so calming.
There’s an excellent profile in Interview in which Jeanne Moreau says: “I shall die very young.”
“How young?” they ask her.
“I don't know, maybe seventy, maybe eighty, maybe ninety. But I shall be ve... (show all)ry young.”
[on Edwardian women in La Belle Epoque]: Women then had a waist and bazooms, and I suppose they had a stomach and everything else.
The beauty of those swans! Of course, they're angry beasts, like peacocks; but where peacocks are common, there's nothing common about swans. The silence of their swimming… you don't hear it, but you feel it.
Vulgarity is a very important ingredient in life. I'm a great believer in vulgarity—if it's got vitality. A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste—it's hearty, it's healthy, i... (show all)t's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)People called Pink don't have other names.
Classifications
- Genres
- Biography & Memoir, Nonfiction, Art & Design, Home & Garden, General Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 746.9 — Arts & recreation Drawing & decorative arts Fashion Design / Weaving, Knitting, Embroidery Other textile products
- LCC
- TT505 .V74 .A33 — Technology Handicrafts. Arts and crafts Handicrafts. Arts and crafts Clothing manufacture. Dressmaking. Tailoring
- BISAC
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- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (3.95)
- Languages
- 6 — English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 13
- ASINs
- 5
