Vreeland Diana Quotes & Sayings

I went to work to make money, not because I was bored. It was money that I wanted. — Diana Vreeland

You don't have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive. — Diana Vreeland

I certainly didn't learn anything in school. My education was the world. — Diana Vreeland

I've always had such wonderful opportunities, but I never made the effort, haven't put on the pressure. But I never took them. — Diana Vreeland

Photographers aren't artists, for goodness sake. — Diana Vreeland

I was always fascinated by the absurdities and luxuries and the snobbism of the world that fashion magazines showed. Of course, it's not for everyone ... But I lived in that world, not only during my years in the magazines business but for years before, because I was always of that world
at least in my imagination. — Diana Vreeland

When I arrived in America, I had these very dark red nails which some people objected to, but then some people object to absolutely everything. — Diana Vreeland

Don't think of Diana Vreeland's memoir as a book; it's more like a lunch. A bit of souffle, a glass of champagne, some green grapes - light, bubbly and slightly tart - all served up by an egocentric but inventive hostess. — Cathleen McGuigan

You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female'. — Erin McKean

I think allure is something around you, like a perfume or like a scent. It's like a memory ... it pervades. — Diana Vreeland

Within every girl is the possibility of arousing emotion. Without emotion there is no beauty. — Diana Vreeland

Poor, darling fellow - he died of food. He was killed by the dinner table. — Diana Vreeland

One thing I hold against Americans is that they have no flair for the rain. They seem unsettled by it; it's against them: they take it as an assault, an inconvenience! But rain is so wonderfully cleansing, so refreshing, so calming ... — Diana Vreeland

Beauty has nothing to do with possession. If possession and beauty must go together, then we are lost souls. A beautiful flower is not to be possessed, it's there to be beheld. ... It's there for your pleasure. — Diana Vreeland

Maintainence is elegance. Diana Vreeland. vogue magazine 1984. — Diana Vreeland

All creations demand greenery of spirt. — Diana Vreeland

I have always felt that the only great thing about an interview is the questions that are asked. — Diana Vreeland

Never worry about the facts. Just project an image to the public. — Diana Vreeland

No one cuts backs like he did. No one knows what a back is anymore. — Diana Vreeland

Never fear being vulgar, just boring, middle class or dull. — Diana Vreeland

I'm for everybody. There are no set rules. But if one's not a joiner. To hell with all of them! — Diana Vreeland

I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress. — Diana Vreeland

I think laying out a beautiful picture in a beautiful way is a bloody bore. I think you've got to blow it right across the page and down the side, crop it, cut it in half, combine it with something else ... do something with it. You've got to make something out of it. — Diana Vreeland

Chutney is marvelous. I'm mad about it. To me, it's very imperial. — Diana Vreeland

Don't look left nor right and never compete. Never. Watching the other guy is what kills all forms of energy. — Diana Vreeland

Why don't you have a room done up in every color green? This will take months, years, to collect, but it will be delightful-a melange of plants, green glass, green porcelains, and furniture covered in sad greens, gay greens, clear, faded, and poison greens? — Diana Vreeland

I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity. — Diana Vreeland

I was always sort of a loner, I suppose. I always had to think out everything for myself ... I suppose that is what you call a loner. — Diana Vreeland

I'm a person who is only invested in the pleasures and enjoyments of life. All the rest is left to the men. I've always remained what you might call "feminine" about the whole [work] thing. — Diana Vreeland

Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world. — Diana Vreeland

When fashion turns over it brings in little tiny creaks and cracks. This is the fascination and that is where you have to watch every step. — Diana Vreeland

The first rule that a geisha is taught, at the age of nine, is to be charming to other women ... Every girl in the world should have geisha training. — Diana Vreeland

I adore that pink, it is the navy blue of India! — Diana Vreeland

A lie to get out of something, or take an advantage for oneself, that's one thing; but a lie to make life more interesting - well, that's entirely different. — Diana Vreeland

In a Balenciaga you were the only woman in the room - no other woman existed. — Diana Vreeland

God was fair to the Japanese. He gave them no oil, no diamonds. He gave them style. — Diana Vreeland

There was a time when it was considered vulgar and unnecessary to pursue money, but today anyone who doesn't believe in money must be out of their minds! — Diana Vreeland

Balenciaga often said that women did not have to be perfect or beautiful to wear his clothes. When they wore his clothes, they became beautiful. — Diana Vreeland

I've always remained totally myself, which is to say, without an idea ... of what to do. — Diana Vreeland

People who eat white bread have no dreams. — Diana Vreeland

The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it. — Diana Vreeland

Don't look back. Just go ahead. Give ideas away. Under every idea there's a new idea waiting to be born. — Diana Vreeland

I adore artifice. I always have. — Diana Vreeland

To be contented - that's for the cows. — Diana Vreeland

Pleasure is everything. — Diana Vreeland

Beauty is in all beings that love and are loved, animals and children, and if older women have it, it is because they feel completely free in this world and in their lives as they feel close to God ... and they are spiritually in tune with the universe. December 6 1968. Letter to Miss Anita Colby, 3 East 78th Street, New York — Diana Vreeland

Where would fashion be without literature? — Diana Vreeland

I read everything! I would have read the phone book if you put it in front of me. I just read. — Diana Vreeland

The red library is Sui's tribute to fashion maven Diana Vreeland, who served as editor for Harper's Bazaar (1939-1962) and Vogue (1963-1961). My most precious collection is my bound Vogue magazines, .. and they're kind of like my Bible. I look at them all the time when I'm trying to inspire myself for a collection. — Anna Sui

The first thing to do is to arrange to be born in Paris. After that, everything follows quite naturally. — Diana Vreeland

Balenciaga did the most delicious evening clothes. Clothes aren't delicious any more. — Diana Vreeland

Before even the technique, there is a dream. Chanel had it. The dream is everything. — Diana Vreeland

Balenciaga was incredibleI was madly infatuated with his clothes. His clothes were devastating. One fainted. One simply blew up and died. — Diana Vreeland

This is a great shame, but of course there have to be some things in life that not everybody can have, and great perfume is one of them. — Diana Vreeland

You gotta have style. 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. — Diana Vreeland

The best time to leave a party is when the party's just beginning. There's no drink that kills except the drink that you didn't want to take, as the saying goes, and there's no hour that kills except the hour you stayed after you wanted to go home. — Diana Vreeland

Peanut butter is the greatest invention since Christianity, — Diana Vreeland

When I discovered dancing, I learned to dream. — Diana Vreeland

If you think all the time every day of your life, you might as well kill yourself today and be happier tomorrow. — Diana Vreeland

You've got to have style, it helps you get out of bed in the morning. — Diana Vreeland

The future holds a golden world. It will be for beauty; it will be for intelligent productiveness. — Diana Vreeland

<"To bewitch" is to me always slightly artificial as it is always put on
whereas witchery is a form of naturalness that some people can't help, and the world judges that they don't create it ... > November 15 1967 memo to Mrs. Loew Gross re "THE ROMANTIC POINT OF VIEW — Diana Vreeland

Parents, you know, can be terrible. — Diana Vreeland

Fashion needs incredible women, alive, stimulating, with style like Diana Vreeland. She is the most. The way she talks expresses all her values. — Gianni Versace

I think your imagination is your reality — Diana Vreeland

The two greatest mannequins of the century were Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell - unquestionably. You just couldn't take a bad picture of those two old girls — Diana Vreeland

I like to indulge myself by sitting up late without having to do anything in the morning. — Diana Vreeland

I am not really sure that Diana Vreeland did Yves Saint Laurent a favor, as opposed to the world, by putting that exhibition at the Met in 1983. Because I'm sure that Saint Laurent started looking back at his own work. You see that with artists, don't you? Once they get their first retrospective, it's really hard for them to push ahead. — Suzy Menkes

Water is God's tranquilizer, — Diana Vreeland

The bikini is the most important thing since the atom bomb. — Diana Vreeland

Too much good taste can be boring — Diana Vreeland

The way to judge a good hand is that the fingers are the same size at the tip as where they come out of the hand itself. — Diana Vreeland

You can see and feel everything in clothes. — Diana Vreeland

Too much good taste can be very boring. Independent style, on the other hand, can be very inspiring. — Diana Vreeland

Money has nothing to do with style at all, but naturally it helps every situation. — Diana Vreeland

Lighting is everything in a color. — Diana Vreeland

Where Chanel came from in France is anyone's guess. She said one thing one day and another thing the next. She was a peasant - and a genius. Peasants and geniuses are the only people who count and she was both. — Diana Vreeland

I wish I could swap closets with Diana Vreeland, but I think only my left thigh would fit into her clothing. — Catherine Martin

I wonder about prisoners. They're told, "You are free, you are innocent, you can go anywhere." I'm sure they usually feel nothing. They don't burst into tears or hysterics or joy or "I told you so." It's nothing. To be on the straight path isn't a bloody thing. It's just ordinary. — Diana Vreeland

I sincerely believe that energy grows from itself and the more energy you expand the more you create within yourself. — Diana Vreeland

Oh, but I think that thoughtfulness and manners are everything. — Diana Vreeland

For goodness sakes, beware of curls ... It is a great art to do them so that the girls not only look modern - but do not suddenly look very vulgar. — Diana Vreeland

Of course I was always mad about the ballet russe, mad about it! — Diana Vreeland

Don't you loathe the word "workaholic"? It has nothing to do with an important thing, that you and your secretary are at the office until 6:30. But that's life, kiddo. 24-hour work doesn't go on in America. 24-hour work is what Italy and Holland did after the war. The lights never went out! — Diana Vreeland

Red is the great clarifier - bright and revealing. I can't imagine becoming bored with red - it would be like becoming bored with the person you love. — Diana Vreeland

I wasn't a fashion editor. I was the one and only fashion editor. — Diana Vreeland

The only thing people are interested in is people. — Diana Vreeland

I once heard someone say, I shall die very young. How young? I don't know. Maybe seventy, maybe eighty, maybe ninety. But I shall be very young. — Diana Vreeland

A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste-it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against. — Diana Vreeland

Pink is the navy blue of India. — Diana Vreeland

Truth is a hell of a big point with me. Now I exaggerate - always. — Diana Vreeland

I always wear my sweater back-to-front; it is so much more flattering. — Diana Vreeland

I have a terrible time remembering exactly when my birthday is. Age is totally boring ... — Diana Vreeland

This is a weakness of the world. Someone thinks they've discovered something for the first time. They want to be authoritative about it. — Diana Vreeland

I've never met a leopard print I didn't like. — Diana Vreeland

You're not supposed to give people what they want, you're supposed to give them what they don't know that they want yet. — Diana Vreeland

The body must stay fit. Fit people like themselves much better. — Diana Vreeland

We all need a splash of bad taste. No taste is what I am against. — Diana Vreeland

Being vulgar is fine, but oh please just don't be boring. — Diana Vreeland

I am tired of the cult of youth. The cultural rejection of old age, the stigmatization of wrinkles, grey hair, of bodies furrowed by the years. I am fascinated by Diana Vreeland, Georgia O'Keeffe and Louise Bourgeois, women who have let time embrace them without ever cheating. Society today condemns this, me, I celebrate it. — Tom Ford