Diana Vreeland: An Iconic Style Leader

Dari T.: If you ever heard Diana Vreeland speak, you can hear her voice telling you all her stories like you were a close friend. She has lived 100 lifetimes; she knew kings and queens, partied with rock stars, posed for famous artists, lived and traveled around the globe. She was so passionate, so excited to learn things, such a lover of life. She’s very inspiring, I was sad when it ended.

United States on Aug 11, 2023

Ronald M. Sacramento Ca.: DV .. what an amazing life story to share. I enjoyed living vicariously through her story. I had to google so many of the names which just made it all the more interesting. So many ohhh, ahhh, wow’s I said to myself as I read her book nightly before bed.

United States on May 13, 2023

Anna Kostina: excellent autobiography by a fantastic woman. like a journey within history and time

Germany on Jul 24, 2022

Shubha: After reading this book,I am influenced by her. It is so nice to know the person who first ruled the fashion world.

India on May 01, 2020

Mrs. K. A. Wheatley: I didn't know anything about Diana Vreeland before I started this book. I got it because someone I know was talking about her and she sounded fabulously eccentric. She is fabulously eccentric. I don't necessarily know anything more about her now than I did at the beginning because she clearly enjoys her own legend, but that's what made this so entertaining. It's rather like going to see an exotic creature at the zoo.

United Kingdom on Jan 20, 2020

Maria: Wonderful book, both for Mrs. Vreeland hardcore fans and newcomers to the wondrous cult of DV. I love how the book's structure is just like Mrs. Vreeland's speaking style -- there are tons of randomly arranged stories, all super colorful, flowing over with energy. There is also quite a lot of information in this compilation of stories that sheds a light onto the relationship of Mrs. Vreeland and her husband -- something you can't find much on in all the other books about her.

Canada on Mar 10, 2018

MARIA VIDEL: muy entretenido! hay muchisimos personajes que son muy de la epoca entonces es buena idea tener el cel al lado para buscarlos. Si tienes un nivel basico de ingles mejor no comprarlo.

Mexico on Jan 09, 2018

CEN-SF: You will either "get" this book, or you won't...with this one I do not see any middle ground.

Each chapter of the book is a memoir on its own, each one very loosely structured, each one heavily studded with dropped names. You know at least some of the names that are dropped, in episodes ranging from finding back plasters for Jack Nicholson, to helping Charles Revson with his nail polish, to finding herself seated next to Josephine Baker (and her cheetah) in a Paris movie house. From that sampling alone you get a sense of the book. It is sort of like a series of evenings listening to a highly successful grandmother hold forth. The stories are fascinating, even as your conscious mind tells you that not all of them can be true. Vreeland is on to this fact, of course, and she drops the veil ever so slightly late in the book and much more fully on its last page. But by then you've either run screaming from the room, or you are so enchanted that you don't care about something as trivial as truth.

Fair warning to anyone looking for much about Vreeland's years at Vogue: she has little to say about them. There are a couple of stories, mainly about her making impossible...

United States on Jun 15, 2014

Jody: Outrageous, colorful, and in no way 100% true, D.V. is an all around fun read! The vignettes of such larger than life characters such as Coco Chanel, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Charles Revson (he always had a look in his eyes), Aly Khan, General de Gaulle, and the rather dizzying array of other 20th century personalities who are given the D.V. treatment are pure fun. The inimitable Mrs. V. addresses the reader as if the two of you are nestled in a comfy corner in her living room, and she's confiding her memoirs, mixed with the advice a favorite aunt would give.

I loved the descriptions of Mrs. V's personal style, from the cheapness of prewar couture, to the Chinese red nail lacquer, to her introduction of the thong sandal to America. I adored it all; the flamboyance, the insouciant commentaries on American hypocrisy, the rather sly way she comments on her dismissal from Vogue. What a personality!

I'm off to search for a lady's maid; some shoes whose soles are worthy of polishing, so I can cross my legs in confidence; and for some silk underclothes in greige. Oh, wait. You say that's not possible in this day and age? No doubt the divine Mrs. V. would find a...

United States on Feb 19, 2014

M. Michele Phillips: It helps greatly to have seen the documentary on Diana Vreeland, because it gets the reader acclimated to her "voice." This is unlike any autobiography I have encountered--unconventional, not exactly chronological, but immensely fascinating. Reading it, you feel as though she is in the room speaking (well, pontificating, really) just to you. Vreeland was exposed to Demimonde Parisian cafe society as a child, so even at a tender age, her level of sophistication rivaled that of most adults. She seems always to have had the great, good sense to be delighted by what was new, ground-breaking and exciting in pop culture--art, artists, fashion, politics, world events. She not only possessed the "eye" but the "ear," as well. She recognized trends while they were barely gestating. The power of her personality comes through on every page. She was larger than life and may perhaps have sucked up all the oxygen in any room in which she held court. But it would no doubt have been quite a heady experience to have been privy to the insight of this amazing, 20th Century icon.

United States on Feb 08, 2014