STYLE GALS: Fashion Icon Diana Vreeland: Her Life on Film!

By Patty On Site | November 12, 2012 | Entertainment, Food Fashion Style

Style contributor Patty On Site reviews the documentary about fashion pioneer Diana Vreeland.

In my ever so stylish life, there are a few fashion documentaries that have moved me. Diana Vreeland, The Eye Has To Travel, a documentary about the former fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar from 1936 to 1962, is one of those films.

Diana was uniquely, chicly amazing! In the sometimes cookie cuter clone cosmos of fashion, she was a blazing star. She was so influential that Jackie Kennedy turned to her for fashion advice on what to wear before John F. Kennedy became president.

Diana was not a beauty by fashion’s standards. As an editor she would find the subject’s faults and make it the must beautiful thing about them. I think because she was different she created herself in something special and momentous.

She raised her two sons not to be ordinary but to either be the first or last in class, never in the middle. While her sons thought this to be dreadful advice, I found it to be brilliant.

Far ahead of her time, her envisage transformed what readers saw — fashion, art and women — into their own beings, which was extremely liberating for the times. She loved romance and drew from history and in turn, turned fashion into history!

In 1936, Vreeland wrote quirky, stylish life suggestions to live by into a regular Harper’s Bazaar column called “Why Don’t You?” It was later turned into a book.

As DivaGals we love her suggestion to “cover a big cork bulletin board in bright pink felt, banded with bamboo, and pin with colored thumb-tacks all your various enthusiasms as your life varies from week to week?” A real-life Pinterest you can touch and feel! To get a real unedited feel of Diana it’s a definite must read, I and I suggest you act on at least one “Why Don’t You?” a day!

After Harper’s Bazaar she became editor-in-chief of Vogue, where she flourished there in the 1960s. After being fired from Vogue in 1971 she went on to become a consultant for the Metropolitan Museum and brought her love and knowledge of fashion history alive for the masses. She organized exhibitions that still take place today.

The Eye Has To Travel was directed and produced by her granddaughter-in-law, Lisa Immorodino Vreeland. Her story was rightfully told by a relative.

Listening to Diana’s wit and life lessons reassures us it’s okay not to fit into some preordained idea of what the fashion industry thinks we should be. D.V. was not afraid to be herself. Though sadness and disappointment touched her life, she was able to reinvented herself when the right opportunity appeared. She wore her signature red boots and kept on stepping! No one today can match the influence she had on the editorial and fashion industry. The impact she had was immeasurable.

To quote Diana, “There’s only one very good life and that’s the life you know you want, and you make it yourself.”

That’s exactly what I plan on doing, and after seeing the film, you will too! Diana Vreeland, The Eye Has To Travel, now playing in select theaters across the country.