I have many people to thank for their help with this book. It would not have been possible without the generosity of members of the Vreeland family in giving a stranger total freedom to proceed and their kind insistence that the book should reflect my point of view, not theirs, thereafter. I am most grateful to Tim Vreeland, Freck Vreeland, and Alexander Vreeland for talking to me about Diana; to Nicholas Vreeland for his time and insight; and to Phoebe Vreeland and Daisy Vreeland for their assistance. Lisa Immordino Vreeland was particularly helpful in forwarding elusive information gleaned from her own research, and in arranging a private screening of her documentary about Diana, The Eye Has to Travel. I would also like to thank Diana’s niece, Emi-Lu Astor, for giving me access to family albums assembled by her mother and grandmother, and for her observations about her aunt.
I was greatly assisted by three biographers: Hugo Vickers, biographer and literary executor of Cecil Beaton, and a friend of Diana Vreeland in the 1980s; Penelope Rowlands, author of A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters; and Dodie Kazanjian, cobiographer, with Calvin Tomkins, of Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman. Penelope provided several introductions to people who worked with Diana at Harper’s Bazaar from the 1930s onward, and has been exceptionally generous with advice and information at every stage. In the course of writing Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman with Calvin Tomkins in the 1990s, Dodie Kazanjian interviewed many people who knew Diana well but who have since died. I am most grateful to her for making her immaculate records available through the Archives of American Art, for her kindness in allowing me to quote extensively from her work, and for introducing me to Anna Wintour. I am also indebted to Grace Mirabella for talking to me at length and for lending me her connoisseur’s collection of Vreeland memos.
Many of Diana’s colleagues and friends shared their memories of her and her world with me, including A. G. Allen, David Bailey, Lillian Bassman, Gigi Benson, Harry Benson, Marisa Berenson, Ferle Bramson, Dolores Celi, Felicity Clark, Bob Colacello, Gleb Derujinsky, Simon Doonan, Jean Druesedow, the late Eleanor Dwight, the late Dorothy Wheelock Edson, Jeanne Eddy, Jason Epstein, the late John Esten, Mary Fullerton Faulconer, Gwen Franklin, Carmel Fromson, Tonne Goodman, Nicholas Haslam, Carolina Herrera, Margaret van Buskirk Heun, Harold Koda, Kenneth Jay Lane, Boaz Mazor, Martha McDermott, Polly Mellen, Annie Hopkins Miller, Beatrix Miller, Betsy Newell, Audrey Oswald, Priscilla Rattazzi, John Richardson, Lynn Riker, Gloria Schiff, Babs Simpson, Valerie Steele, Susan Train, June Weir, and others who prefer to remain anonymous.
The Diana Vreeland Papers are in the Manuscripts and Archives Division in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library. Assistant curator Thomas Lannon and his staff were unfailingingly efficient throughout my many visits. I am especially indebted to Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, for her advice and expertise; to Jennifer Farley, assistant curator, with Ann Coppinger and Molly Sorkin, for making it possible for me to view the museum’s holdings of Diana’s clothes; and to Melissa Marra for her help with the chromes of Louise Dahl-Wolfe. I am equally obliged to Harold Koda, Nancy Chilton, Julie Lê, and the staff of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for their help, together with Gwen Roginsky in the Editorial Department and Julie Zeftel and Dina Selfridge in the Image Library. Shawn Waldron, archive director at Condé Nast, and Lisa Luna at the Hearst Corporation gave me every possible assistance; and so did James Martin and the staff of the Richard Avedon Foundation in New York, especially Michelle Franco. I am also indebted to Jordan Auslander for his genealogical research and to Serena Balfour, Charlie Burns, Julia Fryett, Jean Halford-Thompson, Andrew Harvey, Jennifer Rhodes, Phylis Rifield, Judith Searle, Sue Ryder-Richardson, and Jenna Tinson of Front Row for their efforts on my behalf.
Many libraries and other organizations assisted with research. I would particularly like to thank Mark Bartlett, head librarian, and Carolyn Waters, writer services librarian, and the staff of the New York Society Library, whose assistance in locating and allowing me to photograph back issues of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue I greatly appreciated; Carol Elliott and Leslie Calmes of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson; Etheleen Staley and Takouhy Wise of the Staley-Wise Gallery; Mark Ekman and the staff of the Paley Center for Media; Karen Canell, head of special collections & FIT archives at Fashion Institute of Technology; Sharon Stearns at the development office of the Brearley School; Michael Jones at the development office of the Staten Island Academy; Calvin Tomkins and the staff of the museum archives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Jim Holmburg and Sarah-Jane M. Poindexter of the Filson Historical Society; James Moske, managing archivist museum archives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Abi Gold of the Michael Hoppen Gallery; Monica Karales; the staff of the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History at the New York Public Library; the staff of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the staff of the New-York Historical Society Library; George Turns of Durham Research Online; Elizabeth Boardman of Brasenose College, Oxford; Andrew Brown of the Crown Estate; Timothy Livesy, archivist of Highgate School; the staff of St. John’s College Library, University of Cambridge; Philippe Chapelin; the staff of the British Postal Museum & Archive; the staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, particularly the Vere Harmsworth Library; the staff of the London Library; and in the UK, above all, the staff of the National Art Library at the V&A.
I am most grateful to my agent, Clare Alexander of Aitken Alexander, for steering me in the direction of writing about Diana in the first place, and for her help throughout; and to Terry Karten, editor extraodinaire at HarperCollins Publishers in New York, for all her support, ably assisted by Sarah Odell. I owe many thanks to Susan Llewellyn for her sharp-eyed copyediting and the charming way she grappled with my Scottish English, and to Lydia Weaver and her production team. My gratitude goes to Dr. Heather Tilley for her help with the Vogue chapters; and to Alana Adye, Pippa McCarthy, Saskia Stainer-Hutchins, and Schuyler Weiss for research assistance at other times. This often involved them in exasperating tasks for which they were greatly overqualified, but they attacked everything they were asked to do with diligence, intelligence, and great good humor. The mistakes that remain are all mine.
I am greatly indebted to friends on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Peter and Virginia Carry in New York, whose hospitality must by now have earned them a place in the record books; and to Beverly del Castro, Maurice and Elizabeth Pinto, Jane Deuser, William Lamarque, and Max Silver for making my frequent trips to New York so enjoyable. I would particularly like to thank Frances Campbell and Judith Mackrell for their advice, and Candia McWilliam and Martine Stewart for reading the manuscript in draft. I am extremely grateful to Carol Walford for her calm and steady presence throughout, and all her help. To Marianna Hay, Daisy Hay, Michael Hay, and Freddy and Matthew Santer, I can only say this: Diana Vreeland once described fashion as an intoxicating release from the banality of the world. In my case it’s not fashion, it’s you.