I’m dying to see this documentary about legendary “Empress of Fashion” Diana Vreeland, who led Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue and heavily influenced the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.    Unfortunately, I’ll have to content myself with the book for now; the documentary isn’t showing in Birmingham.  If you’re up for the drive, head over to Atlanta to see it at the Tara Atlanta 4.

Vreeland was known for her signature style (red nails and lips!), eclectic taste and quirky sensibility (once suggesting that parents shampoo their children’s hair in dead champagne).  Some of my favorite DV quotes: 

“Style [is] a standard. It helps you get down the stairs.  It helps you get up in the morning.  It’s a way of life.  Without it you’re nobody.  I’m not talking about a lot of clothes.”

“You know the greatest thing is passion, without it what have you got? I mean if you love someone you can love them as much as you can love them but if it isn’t a passion, it isn’t burning, it isn’t on fire, you haven’t lived.”

“The only real elegance is in the mind; if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it.”

“A new dress doesn’t get you anywhere; it’s the life you’re living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later.”