Empress of Fashion

Diana refused to accept this. The freedom to do one’s own thing was wonderful, she asserted. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t walk out of the house looking like a nun, if that is what you think is splen

porcelain stoves brought back from Europe or beds from China gave the reader a feeling that a sentiment de luxe (and hence the perverse, the capricious) was still operating.”

It can be seen that Mrs. Vreeland’s column was directed towards an imaginary upper-income bracket in a magazine whose circulation was largely due to the average American woman. The psychology of this, however, was shrewd and appropriate. At the height of a depression, to list such things as fanciful as

late 1936 and 1937, when the column appeared most frequently, the United States was still recovering from the Wall Street crash and was teetering on the brink of another sharp recession.

Reed and Diana would read books together, out loud, which had a further impact on her feeling for language: “When you’ve heard the word, it means so much more than if you’ve only seen it.” Beaton was the first to capture the manner in which Diana spoke in the 1930s, noting her “poetical quality,” her insistence on accentuating the positive, and the way in which she gave color and life to the most quotidian event:
“What a bad film,” one might remark. “Yes, but I always adoare [sic] the noise of rain falling on the screen.” To me, beautiful Mrs. Paley in sequins is beautiful Mrs. Paley in sequins, but to Mrs. Vreeland: “My dear, she is the star in the sky.” A swarthy brunette may seem ordinary to me, but to Mrs. Vreeland she is “exceptional, my dear, she’s wonderful! A wonderful sulky slut.’”

Diana was horrified: Beaton had drawn not just her face but her hands, with one hand holding a cigarette, which was reasonable, and the other wearing a wholly imaginary diamond, which was not. The diamond was “the size of an ice-rink” and all the rage at the time. “I was terribly offended by this,” said Diana. “I got him on the phone and I said, ‘Look here, Mr. Beaton, I don’t own a diamond. I don’t want a diamond like that. And if you think this is a suggestion for my husband to give me for Christmas—who’s loony now?’ ” Beaton replied that he had not meant to be offensive, he simply thought it might be amusing. “I said, ‘There is nothing amusing about vulgarity, nothing. And it’s the most horrible vulgar fashion, the average hand is hideous—and the average hand is the one who wears those.’ ” She was, she said later, somewhat stuffy at this stage in her life. Immediately realizing he had misjudged Mrs. Vreeland, Beaton removed the offending diamond, and they became close friends.

“I want to look after detail and I simply must be perfect.”

want to look after detail and I simply must be perfect.

My ambition is to be a dancer or actress have wonderfull clothes and no clothes that aren’t wonderfull, smoke and drink cocktails. Not drink hard of course just for the chic of the thing.

I shall do things all the time (like make things etc). Never be idle! And so on. There are loads and loads of others.” In further diary entries the goal of achieving perfection crystallized around three aims. First, she had to battle her natural disadvantages and transform the way she looked: “I have descoved [sic] I don’t look pleasant & and if I want to look as well as I do want to I must look pleasant and be sweet and look charming and be ‘the girl.’ ” Second, she would improve her manner and the way she spoke: “I have decided that my vocabulary is very small & poor so I am going to try and broaden it.” Third, she would work very hard, although such resolutions were generally subordinate to becoming more attractive: “I shall please everyone in my appearance & my manner and shall work my hardest in everything I do.”