Diana Vreeland, the legendary 1960s Vogue editor, is popping up everywhere these days. The passion for the eccentric fashion doyenne and her visionary layouts clearly endures. The question is: will today’s fashion and fashion magazines hold the same allure in 50 years?

“Allure is a word very few people use nowadays, but it’s something that exists. Allure holds you, doesn’t it? Whether it’s a gaze or a glance in the street or a face in the crowd or someone sitting opposite you at lunch… you are held.” – Allure by Diana Vreeland

Forgive me. I’m obsessed with Diana Vreeland, the legendary Vogue editor and style visionary. And it seems as if I’m not alone. The recent release of Amanda Mackenzie Stuarts’s biography Empress of Fashion: A life of Diana Vreeland caps off a three-year period of veritable Vreeland-mania. In addition to countless recent tributes and editorial layouts devoted to her bold signature style; and a widely celebrated documentary and accompanying book by granddaughter-in-law Lisa Vreeland, The Eye Has to Travel, Chronicle books published a third edition of Vreeland’s Fashion Classic Allure, with a foreword written by designer Marc Jacobs. Clearly, we can’t get enough.

Images: William P. O’Donnell/The New York Times

All this nostalgia for the past has me wondering if there’s a kind of cynicism growing for the future of fashion.

 Vreeland’s daring take on style and her ability to connect the dots between what we wear and the larger world of history, art, film and literature is inspiring us now more than fifty years since she left American Vogue. The current state of fashion inspiration begs multiple questions: Is today’s world of celebrity, fast-fashion, brand building and product placement leaving us hungry for something more? Has the focus on buy, buy, buy finally rendered the medium of fashion meaningless to its more intelligent followers? And shouldn’t we have our own version of Vreeland by now?

Whatever the explanation, the fact is we’re enjoying a mid-century moment in fashion that is truly worth embracing. For those starving fashion lovers wanting to embark on a journey of Vreeland-mania all of their own, may I suggest, in my best Vreeland impersonation, “Why don’t you… Get hold of a copy of her best-selling volume, Allure and see for yourself.”

Images: William P. O’Donnell/The New York Times

Authored in the ’80s, it’s a magical stream of Vreeland-consciousness paired with the work of some of the greatest photographers of all time – Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, Horst P. Horst and Man Ray. Edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Allure also captures the 20^th century’s most iconic cultural figures – Coco Chanel, Maria Callas, Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, Marilyn Monroe, Mick Jagger, Rudolph Nureyev and Audrey Hepburn.

As the great lady once said, “Fashion must be the intoxicating release from the banality of the world.” So if you’re sick of flipping through yet another predictable style magazine makeover, join the legion of new fans currently enjoying Diana Vreeland’s timeless and witty allure.

Check out the trailer for Diana Vreeeland: The Eye Has To Travel.

Top Image: WWD

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Trust your voice and make believe.

Los Angeles based artist Sabrina Ward Harrison has a new book coming out this month. Rather, not quite a book: more of an interactive journal/collage that encapsulates as much your creative expression and experience as it does hers.

The book, titled And the Story is Happening, is another trademark project from the artist who has approached her life and work as “[an] interplay of artwork, photography, writing and video.” What she calls “True Living.”

Her first book, Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself, was published when she was 23 and she has several other tomes to her name including Messy Thrilling Life: The Art of Figuring Out How to Live and The True and the Questions: A Journal.

We reached out to Sabrina to talk to us about her latest illustrated journal, which features written words, mixed-media artwork, and pieces of paper ephemera enclosed in a vellum pocket in the front of the book.

The paper is meant for you, the reader, providing inspiration and prompting a response with words, sketches and collages of your own.

Can you tell us a bit about your process?

I work large and loose usually on and with found materials, it keeps my processes engaging and adventuresome and without expectation.

Have you always kept a diary or journal? Journaling and collaging is a hobby or practice so many of us have experimented with, but for whatever reason – age, occupation – we stop.

I really began journaling when I was about 18. My personal opinion is to avoid starting out with precious materials, i.e. fresh white pages. Go explore and find bits and pieces of color in your neighborhood.

What materials do you use?   

Everything.

Some of the things are…house paint, India ink, oil pastel, fabric, flowers, light, water.

Do you ever fear “ugly” or second-guess yourself in assembling a personal history/collage? What often happens in journal-keeping is that awareness of the possibility of being found. Did you think about the public’s gaze at all?

I relate to that.  I go back and forth with that all the time.

Yes, I do now [consider the public’s gaze], but I believe that we must create what we most need to find and if one stays true, committing to that in a strong and meaningful way, the work becomes its own.

Your book strikes me as a particularly female – dare I say, romantic – expression. Like something Emily Brontë would have composed if she was a mixed-media artist instead of a solitary poet and novelist. Can you speak to that observation a bit?

I think that is mostly true, although I haven’t heard the reference to Emily Brontë, that is interesting.

Being a woman, being my mother’s daughter, my grandmother’s grandchild. The well that I come from is one that draws from color and texture of a female living in this world.

I would say the color and texture of my emotional landscape is feminine as well, although most of the time making, I feel very Tom Boy. I tend to want to experience the physicality of making, much more that the mental planning of the piece ahead of time. I like to dive in the adventure of the story that is happening all around me.

And the Story is Happening Now (Chronicle Books) is available for pre-order and will be officially released on April 25.

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