Empress of Fashion (39 page)

Confronted by such unexpected difficulties, she postponed her return to New York twice. Shopping for Kay Graham was canceled unceremoniously by telegram: “Things moving very slowly in Europe . . . feel terrible letting you down . . . know you will get along famously . . . any trend that looks well on oneself is fashion please forgive me.” But slowly the tide began to turn. Mrs. Gardner Bellanger agreed to take over administrative arrangements in Paris. Countess Aline Romanones, who had been Madrid editor of
Vogue
, undertook to approach a group of aristocratic Spanish women on Diana's behalf. Romanones was successful in unearthing Balenciagas in Spain that had never been seen before, including a child's communion dress, and in helping to secure the loan of the wedding dress of Queen Fabiola of Belgium. Diana soon realized that she would have to round up more designs than she could actually use, and from every period of Balenciaga's career. In New York, Mrs. Paul Mellon, Mrs. Joseph Kennedy, Doris Duke, and art collector Mrs. Charles Wrightsman all agreed to lend significant garments. After her grumpy first reaction Pauline de Rothschild produced no fewer than eighteen pieces, including some that were very rare. The Musée de la Mode et du Costume de la Ville de Paris loaned a dress belonging to Daisy Fellowes from 1949; and Diana herself contributed a “baby doll” dress from 1957, a black lace overdress with ruffles at the hem, worn over a closely fitted sheath dress.

However, it soon turned out that locating the right sort of Balenciagas from the important moments in his career was only half the battle. Hoving agreed that a show could take place in March 1973, barely six months after Diana started. This left her very little time to work on the way the exhibition was presented, and there was a huge amount to do to make it look arresting. Diana hated the Costume Institute's mannequins, maintaining that they were too lifelike, gave her the creeps, and made the museum's costume exhibitions look like a display in Saks. She battled to use mannequins made by the Swiss manufacturer Schlappi, which were taller than the average person, were produced in different finishes, and had an abstract quality about them that Diana greatly preferred. Furthermore she insisted they be as close to the visitors as possible, and not behind glass, and should be grouped together above head height for maximum drama.

The main problem, however, was that surrounded by inert mannequins, Diana badly missed the Girl. Where was the woman who actually animated Balenciaga's designs, with her thoughts, her dreams, her inner world? Deeply frustrated by her absence, Diana drew on years of experience in fashion to re-create the impact and drama of Balenciaga at his most spectacular. She demanded subtle lighting effects on the dresses, insisting that background was as important as foreground and that color was critical to creating atmosphere. The connection between Balenciaga's designs and Spanish culture was highlighted in paintings from the Met's collection by Goya, Velázquez, and Picasso; and Diana prevailed upon the museum to loan a magnificent suit of Spanish armor as a centerpiece for the show. Ramon Esparza's documentary films were cleaned up, dubbed with new music, and looped, a process paid for by Halston. Working in three dimensions for the first time, Diana was able to appeal to other senses. The exhibition was accompanied by flamenco music, and Balenciaga perfume was sprayed through the galleries two or three times a day. When it came to dressing the mannequins, it was Mrs. Vreeland the fashion editor who prevailed, not the scholars. Diana was interested in conveying the tactile qualities of Balenciaga's universe. In the process, she had no compunction about stepping on curatorial toes, and her instinct for what would have impact
now
led to some wild anachronisms. Curatorial staff looked on appalled as Diana improvised a sleeveless Balenciaga sack designed in 1956 as a minidress on a tall Schlappi mannequin.

As she went through the process for the first time, Diana discovered that putting on a costume exhibition involved an enormous amount of unexpected and invisible work, not to mention an aptitude for hustling. She had to talk many people into providing everything for nothing. She and her secretary handled a multitude of details, from clearing permissions, checking the spelling of names, keeping in touch with every donor to the exhibition in the United States and Europe, acknowledging the clothes as they arrived, and finding the right accessories for every outfit, not to mention editing, mounting, and grouping the displays. A habit of hard work and thirty-seven years in the world of fashion stood Diana in good stead as the opening drew closer. She pulled in all the outside help she could, most of it given out of friendship. Kenneth Jay Lane provided jewelry; Priscilla Peck designed the catalog; Richard Avedon, David Bailey, and Bert Stern contributed photographs. Ara Gallant helped with wigs. Pauline de Rothschild and Gloria Guinness wrote articles for the accompanying program. Oscar de la Renta, fashion illustrator Joe Eula, and Eleanor Lambert all lent their assistance. This set up tensions that lasted for a very long time. “She'd never say what it needed,” said one long-term member of the Costume Institute staff. “Then, just before the opening, she'd call in every famous person she knows . . . to save the show.”

Though modest compared with what followed, the preview party for Diana's first exhibition included New York's plutocrats and Diana's friends as well as Balenciaga donors and many Seventh Avenue designers. Kitty Miller lent a Goya as well as a dress, though she complained loudly that she was taking it home because no one could see it in the wretched subtle lighting. Press reaction was favorable, and the exhibition stimulated a debate about the importance and relevance of the clothes in 1973. Halston, for one, found it inspiring though Calvin Klein thought that most of the clothes looked out of date. Standing beside a raincoat of 1962 that was shown with boots and patterned stockings, Diana remarked once again that she often saw what people thought of as street fashion for the first time at Balenciaga. Bernadine Morris, senior fashion writer of the
New York Times,
observed how fast the world had changed since the late 1960s. “Balenciaga closed his house in 1968, when fashion, like other institutions, was splintering,” she wrote. “It's a shock to realize it was only five years ago.”

T
he Balenciaga Exhibition attracted more than 150,000 visitors, making it—as far as the museum was concerned—a success. But Diana was slightly disappointed by the low-key press reaction and became anxious about the renewal of her contract. Under the terms of her severance agreement with
Vogue
, her full Condé Nast pension was payable only from 1975, and she had given up the salary and expenses otherwise due to her as consulting editor. She needed to keep going at the museum for at least one more year to bridge the gap. According to writer Michael Gross, the turning point came at a lunch party in 1973 at the Connecticut home of Oscar de la Renta, when Diana's friends rode to the rescue once again. Kenneth Jay Lane and Bill Blass were among the guests and conversation turned to Diana, who was not present. They knew she was worried about the lack of press coverage and about the renewal of her contract. The Balenciaga exhibition showed just how capable she was; and she had also made a case that benefited them all, for the couturier as artist. They knew she had exciting ideas for other exhibitions. As it happened, Oscar de la Renta had just been made president of the dressmakers' lobby, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), founded a decade earlier. At lunch that day, the guests decided to support Diana by making the CFDA a benefactor of the Costume Institute.

This was helpful, but it was even more helpful when Oscar de la Renta, president of the CFDA and thus cobenefactor of the institute, turned his attention to the Party of the Year. The Party of the Year had originally been conceived by Dorothy Shaver and Eleanor Lambert as a way of adding to the Costume Institute's endowment in 1948, but in its early years it was essentially an industry event. “It was basically Seventh Avenue, a lot of Jewish people,” recalled an institute staffer. “A rabbi's wife who knew everyone did the seating.” From the moment Oscar de la Renta became involved, the Party of the Year changed. Its focus swiveled toward circles where fashion and high society intersected. All guests, regardless of fame or fortune, were obliged to buy high-priced tickets. To make it attractive to New York's finest, it had to be exclusive. To make it exclusive, its committee had to be drawn from New York's elite, which in turn bound them into supporting the Costume Institute. As far as Thomas Hoving and the Metropolitan Museum were concerned, this was a most welcome development, not just because the Party of the Year brought glamour and social distinction but because the strategy was such a success that revenue from party tickets helped to finance the Costume Institute exhibitions thereafter. For example, expenditure on one exhibition in 1974 was estimated at around $100,000; but costs were covered before it opened by sponsorship of $35,000 and Party of the Year ticket receipts of $78,200.

One effect of the CFDA's support for the Costume Institute and its close involvement in the Party of the Year was to boost the influence of fashion industry figures at the Met more widely, to the dismay of some who regarded the emergence of this new circle of influence and power as sinister. This was not, as alleged later, an aristocratizing plot orchestrated by Diana from her basement office on behalf of her fashionable friends. Apart from being insufficiently strategic, she was far too busy to undertake such a project. In attracting new sources of money to the Met, she was doing what she had been asked by Thomas Hoving; and in any case support from the fashion industry had been central to the development of the Costume Institute since 1944. She had little direct involvement in the Party of the Year, which was run by the museum's development office. She gave away as few tickets as possible and regarded making her friends pay as a way of raising some money for the Costume Institute. “Mrs. Vreeland was actually quite discreet about her involvement in the development of the actual guest list,” her assistant from that period remarked. “She did not talk about who she considered ‘in' or ‘out.' ”

By the time of Diana's second exhibition in 1973, Bernadine Morris of the
New York Times
noticed that the party's character had subtly changed. Each of 450 people paid $150 to dine in the Great Hall, surrounded by the Chinese porcelains on permanent display, upon tablecloths of an Oriental pattern chosen by Oscar de la Renta himself. As president of the CFDA he had sent the fabric around to some of his members' workrooms to be stitched into tablecloth shape. He was also credited by Bernadine Morris with the design of at least three of the most eminent guests' dresses: the mauve satin-back crepe worn by Mrs. Douglas Dillon, the flowing aqua chiffon dress of Mrs. de la Renta, and a red chiffon worn by Mrs. Jacob Javits, though Morris noted with some alarm that both the chiffon dresses sported small burn holes by the end of the evening, which suggested that they constituted a major fire hazard. At least some of the guests, according to Morris, managed to tear their eyes away from each other and look at the exhibits.

The exhibition was called
The Tens, the Twenties, the Thirties: Inventive
Clothes 1909–1939
. The real stars of the show were the clothes themselves, chosen by Diana not just for their beauty but for the extent to which they exemplified new ideas: the new freedoms heralded by Poiret; the simple relaxed suits of Chanel, and her embrace of male fashion for the lives of modern women; the craftsmanship and inventiveness of Vionnet, the first to cut fabric on the bias so that it moved with the female body; the wit, artistry, and surrealism of Schiaparelli; the romantic fantasies in lace of the Callot Soeurs; and the Orientalism and the colors of the Fauves and Ballets Russes. Each design represented experiments in length and line that would play themselves out over and over again throughout the twentieth century. There were pieces in the exhibition that Diana remembered well from Europe in the 1930s, lent by other collections at the urging of donors such as Mona Bismarck and Millicent Rogers. Once again Diana called for assistance from every direction, and battled to ensure that each exhibit was beautifully staged and lit. Exhibition visitors wandered through the galleries to the strains of Gershwin, Erik Satie, Stravinsky, and Duke Ellington. Chanel perfume was sprayed in the galleries twice a day. Contemporary paintings, by Guy Pène du Bois and Kees van Dongen among others, helped to set the scene.

This time, the reaction was unequivocal. The press called it a “dazzler,” and the designers were enthralled. Apart from remarking that it was the best costume exhibition he had ever seen, Bill Blass was convinced it would have “the most shattering effect on fashion.” Valentino, who was closer to French couture than most of those present, was stunned by the Vionnet dresses at close range. The show had such an impact on Issey Miyake that he arranged for it to go to Japan, believing that it would open the eyes of Japanese designers. Harold Koda and Richard Martin later wrote: “The foremost accomplishments of Halston in the mid- and late-1970s seem so clearly predicated on his interpretative engagement with this show.” The exhibition was credited with introducing a new generation of New York's designers to the possibilities of the bias cut; and it revealed Diana as a connoisseur as well as a catalyst of fashion. It also inspired Irving Penn to shoot a photographic essay: he greatly preferred photographing clothes on uncomplaining Schlappi mannequins to working with temperamental models. The exhibition and its staging caught the imagination of the public too. The Balenciaga show had been a commercial success, with more than 150,000 visitors. This one broke records. Almost 400,000 people went through the galleries, vindicating Diana's perspective, her showmanship, and her taste, and ensuring that there was no further question about her position at the Met.