This was not how Diana viewed the matter. She felt that she had been as good as running Bazaar during the last two years of Snow’s reign, though others disagreed; and she had a low opinion of Nancy White, by all accounts an exceptionally nice woman but who lacked the flair of her aunt. “We needed an artist and they sent us a housepainter,” Diana said with uncharacteristic venom, for she generally did her best to keep the lid on such feelings, even with close friends. Early in 1958 White had to tell Brodovitch it was time to go. There was further unhappiness when his replacement, Henry Wolf, looked down Louise Dahl-Wolfe’s camera during a shoot, causing her to storm out of Bazaar for good. Diana, too, looked around at other avenues of employment and even made contact with a search firm. By the end of 1958, however, she had begun to reach a modus vivendi with Nancy White. “She’s . . . open minded, because she’s emptied headed [sic],” she remarked to Richard Avedon later. “There’s a hole there—so you can put anything in it.” She was rather more politic in a letter to Cecil Beaton. “I am slowly, I believe, coming out of my shock period and as no one has so far interfered with the clothes which is my business, I should be satisfied,” she wrote. “I’ve made up my mind that the devil you know is better than the devil you do not and that there is bound to be something wrong with every job.”
Carmel Snow still went to Paris on behalf of Bazaar as part of her severance arrangement, so there was no change to Diana’s mandate. Beyond that Nancy White had more sense than to interfere with Diana’s fashion pages, even if she did find their consistent lateness exasperating. Indeed Diana now found herself playing a more creative role, arguing fiercely for the integrity of photographers’ work and frequently getting her way. “Vreeland had this annoying posture of superiority, but she was fanatically committed to her work, whereas the best Nancy White could say about a picture was ‘It’s pretty,’ ” the photographer Melvin Sokolsky said, maintaining that Diana saved him on almost every shoot.
There were other compensations too. Seventh Avenue listened closely to what she had to say. Bazaar’s most interesting contributors stayed close to the magazine, including a freelance illustrator whom Diana found rather perplexing, called Andy Warhol. (Hired by Brodovitch in 1954, he invariably appeared with his drawings of shoes wrapped in brown paper and was nicknamed “Andy Paperbag” by Bazaar’s staff.) Diana and Richard Avedon took on Hearst’s senior executives and published Avedon’s photographs of the non-Caucasian China Machado in the face of much bluster and bullying. And there was fresh talent to educate in the Vreeland way. Henry Wolf, Bazaar’s new art director, recalled that Diana told him she wanted the green of a billiard table as the background to a shot. Wolf dutifully went off and returned with some billiard-table baize. Diana shook her head in dismay. “I meant the idea of the green of a billiard table, Henry,” she said.
In August 1960 Diana received a long letter from Jacqueline Kennedy. Her husband, Senator John F. Kennedy, was running for president against the Republican nominee, Vice President Richard Nixon. It was a very close race in which image played a critical role for the first time in U.S. history, because of television. Kennedy’s camp grasped this, appreciating that his young, handsome face stood him in good stead in contrast to Richard Nixon; and by the middle of 1960 there was intense interest in his wife, too, who stood out by virtue of her charm, her educated tastes, and her beauty. “If her husband reaches the White House, Jackie will be the most exquisite First Lady since Frances Cleveland,” said Time in July 1960. But as soon as Jacqueline Kennedy’s good looks and elegance were deployed as a weapon in her husband’s campaign, her clothes became politicized. The attack was led by John Fairchild, who took over Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) in 1960 at the same time as the Kennedy campaign began to pick up pace. Determined to make a splash with what had previously been a dull industry newspaper, he started adding a social angle and tart comment to WWD’s editorial bill of fare. The timing of Jacqueline Kennedy’s appearance on the campaign trail was a gift.
In July 1960 Fairchild proclaimed on the front page of WWD that Mrs. Kennedy, along with her mother-in-law, Rose, was running on the “Paris Couture fashion ticket.” They were spending fantastic sums of money on Cardin, Grès, Balenciaga, and Chanel—at least thirty thousand dollars annually by his calculations. Jacqueline Kennedy’s protest that she couldn’t have spent that much if she had been wearing sable underwear was swept aside in the ensuing storm. Spotting an opportunity, the Republicans wheeled in Pat Nixon to proclaim patriotically that she liked American ready-to-wear clothes and thought they were the best in the world. “I buy most of my clothes off the racks in different stores around Washington,” she declared. Meanwhile, both Alex Rose of the milliners’ union and David Dubinsky, the powerful head of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, which had contributed nearly three hundred thousand dollars to Kennedy’s campaign, lobbied the candidate about his wife’s un-American fashion choices.
Jacqueline Kennedy bowed to the pressure and wrote to Diana for help. Diana’s taste and knowledge of the American market were regarded as second to none, and there was also a personal connection. Diana had arranged for Richard Avedon to photograph the stunning Jacqueline Bouvier for Bazaar in the year of her debut; Jacqueline Kennedy’s sister, Lee Radziwill, had worked briefly as Diana’s assistant; and she was a friend of Freck and Betty. Betty and Jacqueline Kennedy had been friends when they were students at Vassar, and they met again after Freck and Betty’s marriage, when they moved to Washington and Jackie was one of the few people they knew.
In the late summer of 1960, decisions about clothes were complicated by the facts that Jacqueline Kennedy was pregnant (and wearing elegant maternity coats from Givenchy); that she was a committed and knowledgeable Francophile in matters well beyond fashion; and that so many top American designers simply made copies of French clothes anyway. But that was not the point. “I must start to buy American clothes and have it known where I buy them . . . there have been several newspaper stories . . . about me wearing Paris clothes, and Mrs. Nixon running up hers on the sewing machine. . . . Just remember I like terribly simple, covered up clothes,” she wrote. “And I hate prints.” She needed a look that was in some way “American,” that played to her strengths, and that was simultaneously of the moment and conservative.
Diana applied herself happily to the task, keeping in touch throughout her summer vacation. “It sounds as if you know exactly the right things—you are psychic as well as an angel,” Jacqueline Kennedy wrote back on September 7, 1960, from Hyannis Port. The first step was to choose five or six pieces for a press release in October, close to the moment when Mrs. Kennedy would be too pregnant to appear in public for very much longer. But there was also something much more secret to consider—the inauguration ball gown: “About the Big Eve! I feel it is presumptuous & bad luck to even be thinking about it now—But it is such fun to think about—I would be imagining it if my husband were a garbage man—But don’t tell anyone as Jack would be furious if he knew what I was up to!” Once again she wanted to be very covered-up. “I hate all those Cabinet Ladies exposing wrinkled poitrines.” The gown, she thought, should be very simple: “I also thought no beading—but you can decide that.” And the material should be of the most “fantastic” quality. “I suppose its undemocratic to wear a tiara,” she wrote, “But something on the head.” As to color, Jacqueline Kennedy thought, “White as it is the most ceremonial.” She circumnavigated tempting fate by deciding she was going to have the dress whatever happened. “I will just have to get it anyway & wear it to watch TV if things dont work out!”
Diana responded by suggesting clothes from sportswear designers Stella Sloat, Ben Zuckerman, and Norman Norell. In spite of Jacqueline Kennedy’s injunction that she should not appear to be unduly influenced by Paris, all three designers suggested by Diana had a strong French bias. Even Stella Sloat had Givenchy copies in her portfolio, while Hamish Bowles points out that the purple Zuckerman coat Jacqueline Ke
nnedy then ordered was a “line for line copy of a Pierre Cardin coat in purple wool.” Nonetheless Jacqueline Kennedy was delighted. “You really chose me the very best places,” she told Diana. “In your travels up & down 7th Ave you might tell the same designers to send me spring sketches—as I definitely want to stick with them.” She asked Diana for more advice about accessories to go with the purple Zuckerman coat, and wrote that Diana’s idea of a fur jacket to go over the inauguration ball gown was wonderful, apart from the expense.
Before long, however, Jacqueline Kennedy was mired in a different kind of political complication—other people started piling in with advice about her wardrobe. She suddenly became anxious that Diana might be offended at the unexpected involvement of fashion public relations guru Eleanor Lambert. She had no intention of taking advice from anyone except Diana, she wrote. “I wont consider any clothes except from Norell, Zuckerman & Sloat—& the ‘big Eve’ if it ever happens—will be all you & me.” Diana and Jacqueline Kennedy continued discussing the inauguration ball gown in secret. Jacqueline Kennedy tore out pictures from magazines, writing that she wanted to modify the bodice of one idea “so it doesnt look like a Dior of this season—something more timeless.” There was no question that at this point Jacqueline Kennedy regarded Diana as the person in charge of the dress, which was to be made in the custom dress department of Bergdorf Goodman, headed by Ethel Frankau. “Why dont you work out with Miss Frankau & the designers something you like?” wrote Kennedy. “They could send me another sketch of a velvet dress that you design completely yourself.” She also wanted advice on a headdress for the ball: “The smaller the better—as I really do have an enormous head.”
There was then another complication. However much Jacqueline Kennedy may have wished to retain Diana as her fashion mentor, others had her in their sights once Kennedy became president. In November 1960, Oleg Cassini, a family friend of the Kennedys, proposed himself as her personal couturier; and Joseph Kennedy, her father-in-law, offered to pay his bills should she accept, taking the view that her wardrobe bills could not then be exploited by Kennedy’s political opponents. Jacqueline Kennedy accepted this offer, a move that was greeted with some astonishment by Seventh Avenue, where Cassini was not regarded as a designer of the first rank and something of a vulgarian as well. As it turned out, Cassini was a good choice in the new era of television politics, since he had already worked in Hollywood costume design. This turned out to be a great advantage in creating a style for the president’s wife. Indeed, Cassini’s understanding of the relationship between the camera and fashion was critical to establishing Jacqueline Kennedy’s global image. “Cassini approached each project with a movie costume designer’s eye, ‘envisioning how she would look in close ups or from a distance,’ ” writes Hamish Bowles. “He took Jacqueline Kennedy’s references as starting points, simplifying and then exaggerating lines and details.”
However, Jacqueline Kennedy worried that Diana would feel slighted by Cassini’s involvement. She resolved the matter of the “big Eve” gown by wearing Diana and Bergdorf Goodman’s creation to the inaugural ball while asking Cassini to design another for the inaugural gala. “Now I know how poor Jack feels when he has told 3 people they can be Secy. of State,” she wrote to Cassini on December 13, 1960. Both Diana and the temperamental Cassini behaved well, working together to give the new first lady the wardrobe she needed, including a pillbox hat by Halston, whom Diana much admired, and whose fortunes were transformed from that day onward. “The most incredible & helpful thing you have done is to stay in touch with Oleg,” wrote Jacqueline Kennedy, shortly after the inauguration, which took place on January 20, 1961: “It is very hard for him & me this 1st year—as we don’t quite know the ocassions [sic] for clothes—so he makes 200 sketches—when all I want are 2 dresses! . . . He has such incredible admiration for you—it comes out in a burst of Italian English—he is so proud & touchy & quick to be rattled—not exactly the temperament one would pick for ones grand couturier—but he is devoted & can do lovely things.” She very much wanted Diana to stay involved. “But I hope you will guide him—one of his prettiest dresses is the shoulder black velvet you had him do—so if you can ever spare the time I would so appreciate your helping him—as anything you say he takes as scripture & would make me a dress of barbed wire if you said it would be pretty.” And regardless of Cassini’s involvement, the muff that Jacqueline Kennedy wore to the inauguration itself, which was the topic of much charmed comment, was entirely Diana’s idea.
Diana, along with others including Lee Radziwill and Nicole Alphand, the wife of the French ambassador to the United States, continued to advise Jacqueline Kennedy on her clothes, bringing her attention to new designers and coordinating a wardrobe by Pucci for a trip to Italy. In the longer term, advising the first lady on her wardrobe was important to Diana because it marked the beginning of a real friendship with Jacqueline Kennedy. More immediately it meant an invitation to the inauguration for Reed and Diana. Washington was engulfed in a snowstorm that day, and according to Diana she and Reed made it to the ceremony only by hitching a ride on a snowplow. To thank Diana, Jacqueline Kennedy agreed to be photographed with the president-elect and their children for Bazaar. The resulting photographs by Richard Avedon appeared in the February 1961 issue, precipitating a grumpy letter from Jessica Daves, the editor in chief of Vogue, complaining that Mrs. Kennedy had promised Cecil Beaton a sitting for Vogue but had called it off until after the inauguration. The sitting with Avedon produced images that the Kennedys liked very much. It also turned out to be an exclusive for Bazaar. Thereafter Jacqueline Kennedy decided that press intrusion into the lives of her children would be kept to a minimum, and there would be no more formal photographs of the first lady or the first family.
Diana had brought Bazaar a considerable coup. When it came to the matter of a long-overdue increase in salary, however, even this was not enough for the men of the Hearst Corporation, and Nancy White lacked the authority and strength of personality to deal with them decisively. She may also have lacked the will. When Diana brought up the question of a raise, she took her time to respond, saying, “I think the chances of an increase at the beginning of ’61 are pretty good. In the meantime any outside work that you wish to do seems to be okay if cleared with them first.” This was irritating. Worse, when “they” did finally respond, it was with an offer of a paltry one thousand dollars. Diana was furious: “So I said, ‘Would you please take that back. It upsets everything.’ ‘Oh well, it will upset everything if you don’t take it.’ I said, ‘Then give it to the Red Cross, but don’t send it to me.’ Can you imagine—a thousand dollars! Would you give your cook that after she’d been your cook for 28 years?” Given this reaction, a change was inevitable.
By March 1962 the small fashion world of New York was humming with the news that Diana Vreeland was leaving Bazaar. She would be going to its archrival Vogue, not to replace Jessica Daves but to work alongside her. On March 28, 1962, the news was splashed all over the New York Times in an article by Carrie Donovan. For all her flamboyance, Diana was well known only in fashion and high-society circles, and Donovan’s extended piece introduced her to a wider public for the first time. She was the fashion world’s most colorful personality, wrote Donovan, as well as the most respected editor in the fashion business. Crediting Diana, along with Carmel Snow, for shaping the image of Harper’s Bazaar, and the look of thousands of American women, Donovan’s article also kick-started myths including those of Diana’s Paris upbringing, her parents’ life of pleasure, and their total lack of interest in her education.
The Hearst organization dripped with tears, crocodile and genuine. Dick Berlin wrote: “You know we all wanted so much to have you stay. We consider you part of the Bazaar.” Richard Deems maintained that “the Bazaar without you is just never going to be the same,” though he did not say whether he thought this was a good or bad thing. Nancy White’s note was nice but awkward: “So much of the maga
zine is your talent—your imagination your fondness for doing what you do with passionate belief your taste and your vision all these things and many more. . . . I do wish Carmel was here, I feel so inadequate.” John Fairchild of WWD sent a message from Paris that simply said: “You naughty girl.”
“Greatest relief since Mafeking,” cabled Cecil Beaton from London, alluding to the ecstatic joy in England that erupted at the end of the siege of a small town in South Africa during the Boer War. But it was not Diana he had in mind when he said this: he was talking about Vogue.
Chapter Six
Youthquake
In 1962 Vogue was produced on the nineteenth and twentieth floors of the magnificent art deco Graybar Building on Lexington Avenue at East Forty-Third Street. The magazine had a larger staff than Bazaar, and its organization was much more formal. The executives and most senior editors had their offices on the twentieth floor, while the art department and junior hirelings, often from society families who could cope with the low wages, toiled on the floor below. The news that Diana was coming to Vogue to work alongside Jessica Daves had an electrifying effect on the fashionable juniors. One of them was Nicholas Haslam, who had recently arrived in New York from London, and was working in the art department. “Suddenly a rumour was buzzing around the corridors of the Graybar Building,” he remembered. “ ‘Mrs. Vreeland is coming. Coming here, coming to Vogue.’ ” Diana’s reputation ran before her. “It was said that her maid ironed her newspapers and her dollar bills, blackened the soles of her shoes to make them look like new, and washed and ironed her bed sheets . . . while she took her bath,” recalled Grace Mirabella. “Whether or not all of this was true, we ate it up.” There was nervousness about Diana’s arrival among those in Vogue’s high command who knew her by repute, but for the time being she was protected by Alexander Liberman, the person responsible for luring her away from Bazaar.
Empress of Fashion Page 20
