D. V.

The only complaint I could make about this book is that it was too brief. I could have read this for weeks, and I would have loved another couple thousand pages. There is a paucity of photos, which is a shame, because Vreeland loved the camera as much as it obviously loved her strong, aristocratic features. Some people might dismiss her as a featherweight, but I wouldn't. To do so, would be to fail to understand a singularly fascinating woman. During her time on earth she met most of the big and small names, and has something to say about most of them. I was so enamoured of this small book, that I am going to have to buy a biography. When you read this book, she tells you everything and nothing personal at the same time. A rare gift, to be sure, and not one that I appreciated! As someone else noted, it seems a great pity to only be able to give this delicious tour de force 5 stars, but there you are: life is seldom fair. I would love to have a best friend as fascinating and maddening as Vreeland, but I doubt I ever will. She is a product of another time and another generation. If you ever wanted to be able to sit inside someone's head and watch them think, this book should do the trick. There are better writers and better subjects than D.V. but this book will spoil you for any of them.

Ok, so, I picked up this book because it was mentioned in the movie To Wong Foo and I thought, "Well this better be fabulous!"Boi was fabulous an understatement! Why can't I give this book 6 stars?!?!This is one of the few books where I can agree with all of the fluffy praise quotes peppering the cover LOLA simply gorgeous work, Diana Vreeland is a fabulous, fabulous woman! Such taste! Such elegance! Such style! This is a MUST READ for everyone that wants an example of a true lady!D.V. isn't just about clothes and decorating. While admittingly not a feminist, Mrs. Vreeland is obviously an independent, determined, disciplined woman who is, if not a role model, an inspiration to all!God, I can't even put into words the qualities of this book that are just overwhelmingly fabulous! Its like anything full of good taste (although, as Diana points out, alittle bad taste is needed sometimes, its NO taste that's truly revolting) and true elegance, it leaves one feeling better about themselves and the world around them.

How I loved this book! Diana Vreeland was one of those people whom we call a force of nature. This book captures her spirit so well it's just like chatting with her in person. Be warned, this is not a standard biography. It doesn't start with little Diana being born and growing up. It's a collection of stories from her life, odd thoughts and and arch observations and it works magic.

Ms. Vreeland shares her life story using a collection ( not a SERIES--there is no organization to her tales and it WORKS !)of anecdotes and observations that make you rethink your perspective on the world around us. Along the way you begin to piece the fractured bits together and find a stained-glass mural that shows the rich colors and attention to detail that form the rose-colored glasses she, so conspicuously, chooses to accesorize her view of life. The joy she finds from things that strike out at conventional tastes is almost evangelical..Before the third chapter you begin to wonder what ever happened to men who tipped their fedoras to a passing lady or the custom of DRESSING for dinner. You also discover that, beneath the veneer of a trend-hopping fashionista, you are discovering a woman who savors even the smallest details of life as if they were beluga roe or the breezes near the jasmine hedges on the clifftop gardens of the Mediterranean. You will laugh out loud and you'll catch yourself in a nostalgia for a more glamorous era when being on a "best-dressed" list meant you had more than just a lot of money to throw at the salespeople on Madison Avenue. She tells of fitting sessions ( FOR HER NIGHTGOWNS !) and the spring collections between her tangents that lament the demise of "fringe". Some may call her shallow and ungrounded but I think she is " a bit of 'all right' ".I have a first edition hardback that I use to escape the modern world when I have seen too many baseball caps worn backwards that day. The book was the basis for the off-Broadway play "Full Gallop" and is essential for anyone who forgets that fashion, beauty, glamour, and enormous style are the four basic food groups of living "out loud". Pay attention and read every word because the text is peppered with phrases that will become part of your lexicon if you know the difference between 'taupe' and 'beige'.

After years of work, scientists have finally discovered the cause of homosexuality. It's not your genes, it's not your parents, it's not your hypothalamus...it's this book. The first paragraph hooks you, and the rest of the book takes care of the rest. If you're not shrieking and yearning to redecorate by the time you reach lines like "Pink is the navy blue of India," then you're either illiterate or John Wayne. Plimpton's oral history style gives the book a wonderful rambling spontaneity. A brilliant account of the brilliant life of one of the century's towering cultural figures and fabulists.