SHORTS DIANA VREELAND
THE chic of it A new book celebrates the wit and wisdom of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue doyenne Diana Vreeland, accompanied by illustrations by artist and designer Luke Edward Hall Words by James Collard
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“The first thing to do, my love, is to arrange to be born in Paris. After that everything follows quite naturally.” That’s just one of many arresting lines in Diana Vreeland: Bon Mots: Words of Wisdom from the Empress of Fashion (Rizzoli), which teams her words, and commentary from her grandson, Alexander Vreeland, with illustrations by the artist and designer Luke Edward Hall (who has also been known to pronounce on matters of taste in his column in the Financial Times). The comment is classic Vreeland – unreasonable, camp even, but with a kernel of truth. For things did follow quite naturally for Vreeland. Born in Paris to Anglo-American socialite parents, she spent the 1920s and ’30s between London – living the fashionable life and selling expensive lingerie out of a chic little shop near Berkeley Square – and New York, over which she would
