Empress of Fashion (54 page)

247 captured at a memorable shoot: the December 1967 spread contained photos of Nureyev by Richard Avedon from sittings in 1961/2 and 1967. Avedon took nude photographs of Nureyev at both of them. It is not clear when Diana visited the studio, but it was most unusual and more likely to have happened while she was still at
Bazaar
in 1961/2.

247 “You know how it is with men”: Andrew Solomon, “Invitation to the Dance,”
Vogue
, November 2007, p. 114.

247 “To me, the Pill was the turning point”: Lieberson, “Empress of Fashion,” p. 28.

248 changing female identiy: see, for instance,
Vogue
, January 1, 1967, pp. 128–33.

248 Women who saw sexual liberation differently: see Carolyn Bronstein,
Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976–1986
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 30–31.

249 “Who's So Liberated?”:
Vogue
, September 1, 1970, pp. 382, 383, 422, 423.

249 “the true impact of an unforgettable woman”: ibid
.
, p. 390.

250 “In my opinion in the year 2001”: DVP, Box 6, Folder 17, and
Visionaire 37
, no page numbers.

251 “I mean [at
Vogue
], we're asked to help”: transcript of the conversation between DV and Mrs. Vernon Taylor, DVP, Box 6, Folder 2.

251 “exacting in her facts and her purposes”:
Vogue
, May 1, 1967, p. 174.

251 “They've been to the best schools”: transcript of the conversation between DV and Mrs. Vernon Taylor, DVP, Box 6, Folder 2.

252 “She never wants to be first”: ibid.

252 “can easily be compared”:
Visionaire 37: Vreeland Memos.

253 
Vogue
's losses became catastrophic: midmarket magazines fared better, but
Bazaar
did badly too, with a drop of 37 percent.

253 “In a funny way”: Carol Phillips to DK, DKP, p. 9.

254 “
Vogue
was high drama”: Mirabella,
In and Out of Vogue
, p. 120.

254 “She should have taken more
care
, George”: Diana to George Plimpton, Diana Vreeland Tapes, Tape 6.

254 “She wouldn't listen”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 694.

254 “You never had any peace”: Carrie Donovan to DK, DKP, p. 9.

255 “Inventing a look like . . . ‘Scheherazade' ”: Mirabella,
In and Out of Vogue
, pp. 131–2.

255 “The next morning they found the Peruvian army waiting”: ibid
.
, p. 133.

255 ‘Oh, I know how to handle those boys': Carrie Donovan to DK, DKP, p. 9.

256 “
Her
world”: quoted in
D.V.
, p. 173.

256 “I used to beg her”: Mirabella,
In and Out of Vogue
, p. 138.

256 Alex and Si Newhouse: Alex Liberman and Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr. The latter, known as “Si,” was son of the newspaper tycoon Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. who bought Condé Nast Publications in 1959. Si Newhouse became Publisher of
Vogue
in 1964.

256 “whole sort of court of admirers”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 692 and p. 852.

257 Avedon took a tough line: Richard Avedon to DK, DKP, pp. 15–16.

257 “Frankly, they're both very strong personalities”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 852.

257 “I think it struck her as an efficiency”: Carol Philips to DK, DKP, p. 13.

257 “She was given too much power”: Kazanjian and Tomkins,
Alex
, p. 281

257 “were stronger than they should be”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 884.

257 “The extremes of her taste”: Alexander Liberman to DK, DKP, p. 691.

258 “I tell you the truth”: Carol Phillips to DK, DKP, pp. 13–14.

259 “And we sat there”: Si Newhouse to DK, DKP, p. 43.

259 “a yellow rat”: Lerman,
The Grand Surprise
, p. 405.

260 “My recollection of Dianne”: Si Newhouse to DK, DKP, p. 45.

260 A fashion editor should be “much, much younger”: Babs Simpson to DK and to Amanda Mackenzie Stuart.

260 “She herself was becoming older”: Mirabella,
In and Out of Vogue
, p. 129 and p. 138.

263 Rumors flew: Cecil Beaton was convinced that Margaret Case was “dreadfully upset at the sacking of Diana and the direction in which
Vogue
was going, headed by a lot of ghastly go-getting animals” and that it sent her into a depression from which she never recovered. See Hugo Vickers, ed.,
The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as They Were Written
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002), p. 195.

263 “ashamed and afraid”: Mirabella,
In and Out of Vogue
, p. 141.

264 “I was so frightened I could hardly speak”: Colin McDowell,
Manolo Blahnik
(New York: HarperCollins
,
2000), p. 84. Manolo Blahnik was always grateful to Diana. He visited her at 550 Park Avenue whenever he was in New York and long after he became successful. However, he never quite got over his awe of her. “Don't be terrified! This isn't
Vogue
any more, you know,” she was wont to say (McDowell,
Manolo Blahnik
. p. 86).

264 She continued to write memos: Grace Mirabella,
Visionaire 37: Vreeland Memos
, and DVP, Box 6, Folder 17. Again, memos quoted here are from more than one source.

264 “I am not proud”: Mirabella,
In and Out of Vogue
, p. 141.

265 “This has been a very curious autumn”: DVP, Box 5, Folder 2.

265 “ingenious, clever little bug”: DV to Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Patterson, April 27, 1972, DVP, Box 4, Folder 21.

265 “To hear someone say that Diana Vreeland is a positive thinker”: Lieberson, “Empress of Fashion,” p. 28. Norman Vincent Peale was a preacher and author of
The Power of Positive Thinking,
which has sold millions of copies since its publication in 1952 and is still in print.

265 “It seems to be a long Valentino parade”: DVP, Box 6, Folder 15. “Jackie, Audrey, and Babe” were, of course, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Audrey Hepburn, and Babe Paley.

266 “I happen to have a very beautiful room”: DV to Norman Norell, thanking him for “dozens of perfectly beautiful white roses,” April 20, 1972, DVP, Box 4, Folder 17.

CHAPTER EIGHT: OLD CLOTHES

267 “moribund,” “gray” and “dying”: Thomas Hoving,
Making the Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p. 32.

267 He caused a stir: ibid., p. 275.

268 he hired . . . Eleanor Lambert: ibid
.
, p. 49.

268 He soon discovered that this was not a good idea: ibid
.
, p. 133.

269 “He came to see me”: Vreeland,
D.V.
, p. 175.

269 a group of Diana's most powerful friends: DVP, Box 11, Folder 6.

270 all Diana's friends who agreed to support her paid up: ibid.

270 For all this she would receive: ibid.

270 “I have been rebuilding my life”: DVP, Box 4, Folder 7.

270 “I am ecstatically happy”: DVP, Box 10, Folders 4.

270 “Life is a fine performance”: Diana”s engagement diary, August 13, 1972, DVP, Box 48, Folder 3.

271 As she recollected the affair: DVP, Box 14, Folder 3.

271 “It was like a small court”: Hugo Vickers,
Behind Closed Doors: The Tragic Untold Story of the Duchess of Windsor
(London: Hutchinson, 2011), p. 45.

272 “Please forgive me tracking you down”: DVP, Box 12, Folder 2.

273 “Please Pauline do not be bored”: DVP, Box 12, Folder 2.

273 “Everyone loves and adores Balenciaga”: DV to Cecil Beaton, October 6, 1972, DVP, Box 12, Folder 2.

274 “I am now beginning to wonder”: ibid
.

274 “Things moving very slowly in Europe”: DVP, Box 10, Folder 4.

274 a “baby-doll” dress: see Miller,
Balenciaga
, p. 39. Diana may have misdated her “baby-doll” dress. Miller suggests the design appeared from 1958.

275 Curatorial staff looked on appalled: See Dwight,
Diana Vreeland
, p. 210.

276 “She'd never say what it needed”: Jesse Kornbluth, “The Empress of Clothes,” p. 35.

276 Press reaction was favorable: see for instance “The Era of Balenciaga: It Seems So Long Ago,” Bernadine Morris,
New York Times
, March 23, 1973.

277 making the CFDA a benefactor: Michael Gross,
Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum
(New York: Broadway Books, 2009), pp. 375–76.

277 “It was basically Seventh Avenue”: ibid., p. 209.

278 costs were covered before it opened: figures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives.

279 managed to tear their eyes away: see Bernadine Morris “This Show Will have the Most Shattering Effect on Fashion,”
New York Times
, December 14, 1973.

280 stunned by the Vionnet dresses: ibid.

280 “The foremost accomplishments of Halston”: Martin and Koda,
Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style
, p. 17.

280 “She uttered one word”: Hoving,
Making the Mummies Dance
, p. 355.

281 “The basis was perfect designing”:
Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design
, exhibition catalog (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974), n.p.

282 “That's the best advice”:
Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design
, audioguide (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974).

282 “It is about the dreams”: quoted in
Vogue
, December 1974, p. 169.

284 Tonne Goodman and André Leon Talley: at the time of going to press in 2012, Goodman is fashion director of American
Vogue
, and Talley is a contributing editor.

284 “She was a solo pageant”: André Leon Talley,
A.L.T.: A Memoir
(New York: Villard Books, 2003), p. 156.

285 “
Well,
first
of all we knock off all the bosoms
”: George Trow, “Haute, Haute Couture,”
The New Yorker
, May 26, 1975.

286 “No curator in the history of the Met”: Hoving,
Making the Mummies Dance
, p. 354.

286 “When people ask me”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, p. 108.

286 They set off to the cinema: as recounted in Andy Warhol's diaries, in Kornbluth, “Empress of Style,” and Kenneth Jay Lane to Amanda Mackenzie Stuart.

287 “This is a working man's town”: Diana in conversation with Henry Geldzahler in “The Empress and the Commissioner.”

287 “In the space of twenty minutes”: draft of an anonymous article, DVP, Box 63, Folder 6.

287 “I was
never
an embassy girl”: George W. S. Trow and Alison Rose, “Eclectic, Reminiscent, Amused, Fickle, Perverse,”
The New Yorker
, June 5, 1978, p. 77.

288 “He had lots of liquor”:
The Andy Warhol Diaries
, ed. Pat Hackett (London: Simon and Schuster, 1989), Friday, January 6, 1978, p. 94.

288 “It really becomes more like pagan Rome”: quoted in Bob Colacello,
Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up
(New York: HarperCollins, 1990), p. 352.

288 “Supplicating figures”: Lerman,
The Grand Surprise
, p. 437.

288 “Mick is the most attractive man in New York”: Trow and Rose, “Eclectic, Reminiscent, Amused, Fickle, Perverse,”
The New Yorker
, p. 81.

288 “You're so lucky you're a
wop
”: Colacello,
Holy Terror
, p. 291.

289 found Diana's anti-Semitic tone extremely distasteful: see Richard Avedon to Calvin Tomkins, Tomkins, II.A.108. MoMa Archives, N.Y., p. 4.

290 the interior designer Sister Parish: “Sister” was a nickname. She was not a nun with a talent for interior decoration.

291 “Despite the underlying ambivalence”: Colacello,
Holy Terror
, p.292.

293 “a true expression of her own”: Talley,
A.L.T
., p. 171.

293 “on the common ground of excellence”:
American Women of Style
, exhibition catalog (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975), n.p.

293 “When I'd been in Russia”: Vreeland,
D.V.
, p. 184.

294 “A minute before eleven”: Hoving,
Making the Mummies Dance,
p. 355.

294 “The Russians blinked first.
”
Hoving, ibid. p. 356.

294 “She would praise lavishly”: ibid.

295 “We have to—ummm—
consult
”: George Trow, “Notes and Comment,”
The New Yorker
, December 20, 1976, p. 27.

296 “the biggest one of these things”:
Warhol Diaries
, Monday, December 6, 1976, p. 5.

296 “The trick of having a regal New York social life”: Trow, “Notes and Comment,” Dec. 20, 1976, p. 27.

CHAPTER NINE: ENDGAME

297 “
This thing about being recognized
”: Allure Manuscript, DVP, Box 35, Folder 2, p. 191. An edited version appears in
D.V.,
pp. 193-94.

297 “society, with its foibles”:
Vanity Fair,
exhibition catalog (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977), n.p.

297 “was what she believed a magazine should be”: Martin and Koda,
Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style
, p. 21.

298 “Why? Because we are not presenting an anthology”:
Vanity Fair,
ibid., n.p.