Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel

This is an art history of the twentieth century as seen through fashion, its most glittering art form. Weaving together video footage, magazine layouts, and first-hand accounts, the filmmakers trace the life of DV, one of fashion's all-time most imaginative thinkers.

Born rich ('but ugly', as her mother would have said) in Paris at the turn of the century, she partied her way to New York. When Carmel Snow noticed her chic outfit in a nightclub, she offered her a job at Harper's Bazaar. Thus began a fabulous self-created career, first at HB through the thirties forties and fifties, and then at Vogue in the sixties. There, she launched photographers like Richard Avedon and David Bailey, and put designers like Yves St Laurent on the map. She discovered an endless succession of models like Verushka and Iman, who turned notions of beauty inside out. And she originated idea of celebrities as models, studding Vogue with wonderful shots of Cher, Mick Jagger, and Jacqueline Kennedy. She also spent staggering amounts of Vogue's money pursuing fashionable subjects around the globe; they she fired her in 1972.

She was not idle for long- soon the Metropolitan Museum persuaded her to help launch the Costume Institute. There, she was able to bring her extravagant sense of fashion to a wide audience, and, not incidentally, throw some great parties.

The best thing a documentary can do is pick a fascinating subject, and clearly, DV was a LOT of fun. A Who's Who of actors, artists, writers, and fashion luminaries signed on to supply their recollections, both then and now. Her interviews with George Plimpton, Jack Paar, and Dick Cavett are lavishly excerpted, as well as material from her sons and grandchildren. (Her granddaughter's reading aloud from a vintage issue of Vogue is definitely a high point!)

The wealth of material here is stunning- and the filmmakers' skill in handling it is a triumph.

I think I love this the most for Diana's ugly duckling syndrome. Not all people are beautiful. Very beautiful people can be intimidating, which does nothing to encourage friendship and commerce. The way this problem intersects with fashion is very important. You can correct, or disguise physical defects with clothing and makeup. Diana set a good example for women who are not classic beauties. She got to work and made herself useful. She had good taste. She got dressed up every day, put on makeup and jewelry, and forayed out into the world. The alternative was staying home, depressed and useless. She had the good sense to pay attention to what the public was wearing out in the street every day. How are other people interpreting fashion, solving clothing problems, and individualizing their clothing? What are the kids wearing? Viewers want to see that in a magazine. That is why we read, after all, to collect new ideas. Diana paid attention to the wider world. That's the sign of a healthy person. Good clothing makes us feel good about ourselves. It is an essential part of sobriety. Good personal hygiene is the first step to staying sober. The alternative is people sleeping in the street with no clothing on, drunk and stoned. We don't want that, right? So, for those reasons alone, I loved this movie. But wait, there's more! We want a magazine to encourage women to engage in good hygiene. She did that. So why fire her? If you were not making money, it's because you were not advertising. Good advertizing makes or breaks a company. In any event, you did fire her, but she survived it, and thrived. That sets a good example as well. She got back up and got out of the house and made herself useful again. The photography in her magazine was truly inspiring. It inspired the viewer to imagine another life, which is good. This is one of the reasons we make art, and share photographs: to inspire and inform the viewer. The alternative is stagnation and a kind of artistic death. Diana's style was sexy and feminine. We want to encourage women to feel sexy and attractive to the opposite sex. The alternative is a utilitarian and androgenous style, which does nothing to encourage procreation. So what's the problem with keeping Diana employed? By the way, I do not think Diana is ugly. She is totally unique. I think she needs to gain some weight.

Her first name Diana is pronounced "Deeanna). Unsure if that was to sound better with Vreeland or was the original pronunciation. It would surprise me not one whit if she suddenly changed it because it went better - that is the audaciousness of who she was.

To view this very well done documentary is a sheer delight and an amazing time capsule of women's fashions and a very intimate and up close documentary of the woman who has had the biggest impact of anyone on the planet on women's fashions.

You will be highly entertained, laugh often at this most audacious lady who says "Live the life you know you want, make it your own". Who's statements of fact become what she terms "faction" a better story than telling it like it actually was.

It is rare to meet someone who so lived their life at full throttle. A fascinating in-depth documentary that includes conversation with Diana, those who worked with her, celebrities, musicians, etc.

You cannot help but be mesmerized and riveted. Loads of pictures, covers of Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, and notable people.

Her impact on fashion, photography, creating an experience on the pages of these fashion magazines that challenged, entertained and gave snippets of geography, history and knowledge to the reader was and still is unmeasurable.

I am so happy that I enjoyed the full movie experience to this bigger than life Grand Dame. A definite buy when available on DVD - but I do encourage you to see it in the theater.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel, was an interesting film but a few jarring issues made it hard for me to really enjoy it. Firstly, the decision by the film maker (who I assume is a relative of the subject) to leave unchallenged Ms Vreeland's assertion that she was "not rich". How can anyone how has their clothes tailor-made by Coco Chanel be anything else! Not rich compared to whom, the Vanderbilts? Also the decision not to name any of the talking heads was infuriating. I note one of the other reviewers claims that the child reading from a magazine column was a grandchild of the subject. How did they know that? The print I saw did not identify a single soul. Finally, several of these nameless heads spoke in languages other than English, and none of what they said was translated. Mystifying! Maybe I saw a dodgy version, and all the captions and subtitles left off... Or maybe I am too much of a pleb to be included in the target audience for this film (who are trilingual and have an intimate inside knowledge of the fashion industry and an encyclopeadic knowledge of the physical appearance of dozens of designers, photographers, models and, I assume, hangers on of the fashion world). Bah humbug.

This is a fascinating, if very flawed, film about one of the most fascinating women of the 20th Century who opened doors for women in the 21st Century.

It was informative, and "in her own words", but, as one reviewer put it, the talking heads were never identified. I only knew when her sons spoke because they called her "mother". Otherwise - unless you know from looking at this crew who they are, you have to just sit back and enjoy their stories about her taking it on faith.

Thank goodness she had the fortitude and strength to steamroll over the man at the Met who wanted to know her "credentials". What an idiot.

What a wonderful woman! Well ...... to a lot of people.