The Holiday season has turned into the coffee table art/fashion book season in my realm. And this year will be no different; books are my choice gift to give (and receive, hint hint). Enter legendary Diana Vreeland. I will admit that I own many books about Diana Vreeland – one of my favourite fashion magazine editors (sorry, not sorry Anna). Ever. Diana Vreeland Memos: The Vogue Years [Rizzoli] chronicles her years at Vogue through her correspondence. This rare look behind the scenes at Diana Vreeland’s Vogue reveals the legendary editor in chief in her own inimitable words.
When Diana Vreeland became editor in chief of Vogue in 1963 she transformed the magazine – ensuring its place as the dominant fashion publication. Vreeland’s Vogue was entertaining and innovative as well as serious about fashion, art, travel, beauty, and culture. What makes this book so interesting, is that Vreeland rarely held meetings and instead chose to communicate with her staff and photographers through memos. These are those memos. The compilation of more than 250 pieces of Vreeland’s personal correspondence—most published here for the first time—includes letters to Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, Norman Parkinson, Veruschka, and Cristobal Balenciaga and memos that show the direction of some of Vogue’s most legendary stories. The memos display Vreeland’s irreverence and reveal her sharpness about the Vogue woman and what the magazine should be. To illustrate the importance of such memos, this tome adds in the photographs from the magazine that are the products of such memos; showing her imagination, prescience, and exactitude. Available through Amazon.