Working Girl

"If you produce one book, you will have done something wonderful in your life." - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

There are not one but two fabulous new books that chronicle the more than two decades that Jackie Kennedy Onassis spent as a book editor.  Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Greg Lawrence which you can read an excerpt from in the January 2011 issue of Vanity Fair and Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books by William Kuhn.  For most of her life, Jackie was defined by the men in her life but it wasn't until she started to work that she really came into her own.  Jackie was said to have nurtured her authors, many of whom left Doubleday after her death because they couldn't bear working there without her.  I was surprised to learn that she worked with Diana Vreeland on her book Allure which was recently rereleased.  Vreeland's grandson, Nicholas Vreeland, remembers Jackie coming over to Diana's apartment to work on it.  I can't wait to read both books and see what else she helped to publish! 

Diana Vreeland and Jackie Kennedy Onassis

Bon Weekend

"You've got to have style.  It helps you get out bed in the morning."

- Diana Vreeland

Chic at Work: Diana Vreeland

I couldn't just post Diana Vreeland's home when her office was just as chic.  She began her magazine career at Harper's Bazaar when Carmel Snow hired her because she was impressed with her style.  She became known for her "Why don't you..." columns and even hired Ali MacGraw.  After she was fired, she was went on to be the editor in chief of Vogue in 1963.  She stayed with the magazine until 1971 after which she joined the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These photos are from her Vogue office about 1968 and the inspiration board and leopard carpet attest to her innate sense of style.  She famously said once that "too much good taste can be boring" but it's clear that she had amazing taste and was never boring!

Allure

I own a lot of vintage books but one I don't have in my collection is Allure by Diana Vreeland.  I was therefore very excited to see a reissued copy in the bookstore today.  Vreeland was a fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar and Vogue before her appointment in 1972 as “Special Consultant” to The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The book came about in 1980 because her editor at Doubleday, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, urged her to put together photos and musing on "allure" in fashion and in life.  Fashion designer Marc Jacobs has written the foreword in the new version of Allure and I look forward to adding both editions to my shelves. 

The cover of Allure is red and since I didn't have any photos from the book, I thought it would be fun to take another look at Diana Vreeland's Park Avenue apartment.  According to her decorator, Billy Baldwin, she told him “I want this room to be a garden-but a garden in hell.”  He replied “I knew what it meant: red. I searched for an eternity before I found exactly the right material- in John Fowler’s shop in London. It was scarlet chintz with brilliant Persian flowers. I raced home with yards and yards of it and we covered the whole room – walls, curtains, furniture, the works.”  Luckily, the bedroom is blue although, still a riot of pattern.  Enjoy!

 



Give Them What They Didn't Know They Wanted!

When I was looking for Jeremiah Goodman illustrations yesterday, I came across one he did of Diana Vreeland's living room. I had been meaning to write a little post about the grand dame of fashion for a while and now seemed like the perfect opportunity. I also think it's another example of the world of fashion, art and design converging again.

Diana Vreeland was certainly a character. A larger than life woman who loved fashion and frivolity but who also needed to work to help support her family and their lavish lifestyle. She was friends with the who's who of the time including C.Z. Guest, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Cecil Beaton, Cole Porter, and even Andy Warhol. She worked for Harper's Bazaar for 26 years, and later was editor in chief of Vogue. After she was unceremoniously fired, she went on to work with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and turned it's benefit into the fashionable fete that it is today. Ali McGraw was at one point her wide eyed 21 year old assistant! Can you imagine working for Diana Vreeland? Amazing!

She was known almost as well for her blood-red living room at her apartment at 550 Park Avenue as she was for her fashion sense. "I want this place to look like a garden, but a garden in hell" she said and it looks like she accomplished that in the above photo by Horst and illustration by Jeremiah Goodman. She spent all her life pursuing the perfect shade of red, the great clarifier she called it, bright and revealing.

I could go on and on because her life story is fabulous and a bit tragic at times. She was a woman who when the going got tough, she got going and with gusto! I love reading inspiring biographies of interesting woman and I loved reading about Diana Vreeland. I suggest picking up Eleanor Dwight's wonderful book, Diana Vreeland, and reading that one first. I made the mistake of reading D.V. first and later learned that Mrs. Vreeland liked to exaggerate just a wee bit, kind of like my grandmother. Got to love her. I also own the Sotheby's catalog from the auction of her estate that is a wonderful record of her lovely home and life. Included in the catalog, are the two Oberto Gili photos above and below.

Not only did Diana Vreeland give us more than we knew we wanted, she gave us more than we could have ever dreamed up ourselves. She truly was one remarkably chic and elegant woman!