THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL

 

I was talking to a friend of mine recently who had just gone to see the Diana Vreeland documentary The Eye Has to Travel and absolutely fell in love.  We both share a love for this extraordinary woman, and I was lucky enough to receive the book of the same name as a Christmas gift this past year.  For the next three days I couldn't put it down, and I've poured over it many times since.  I have wanted to create a post about her and the amazing caliber of work she endlessly devoted herself to for quite some time.  And after looking through countless images, interviews and quotes, I am reminded of what a treasure she really was.  Richard Avedon, her friend and constant collaborator, stated "Diana lived for imagination ruled by discipline, and created a totally new profession.  Vreeland invented the fashion editor.  Before her it was society ladies."

And he was right.  Vreeland was the first to look at fashion, and the pages it was placed on, as an art form.  Models didn't simply pose, they jumped and leaped and flashed across the page.  Always dressed and styled impeccably, usually by Diana herself.  One of my favorite contributions she made to the pages of Harper's Bazaar was her now infamous "Why Don't You ...?" column in which she pondered the outrageous and the absurd, always with sharp wit and delight.  She was a true original in every sense of the word, and knew that life needed to be lived out loud.  And in color, preferably.

Anyone who's afraid and does not search and give as much as possible to the world of pleasure is a totally ignorant person.  We were put here for the joy of it, for the hell of it.  And it's all here now; nothing has been taken away.  It's a question of creating it.

~DV 

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