REFERENCE LIBRARY MUST: ALLURE: DIANA VREELAND

Read Vreeland's "Allure" like it were gospel

"I think laying out a beautiful picture in a beautiful way is a bloody bore. I think you have to blow it across the page and down the side. Crop it, cut it in half, combine it with something else...do something with it. You have to make something of it.

Diana Vreeland in Allure

Wry words of wisdom from the greatest fashion editor of all time. Reading "Allure" is like having this dramatic and autocratic fashion fanatic declare and declare and declare all her creeds and codas right into your ear. But more than creeds and codas, Vreeland's point of view is a world view and a tradition and finally in 2009, very much a legacy. I first read "Allure" when I was 17 and could not make heads or tails of all that antiquated referencing . Now I can. Now I understand that Vreeland was evoking a time when fashion was directly derived from Society, as in Haute Society. And through Vreeland you get the beat that Society was the dwindling tradition of a very European conceit of aristocracy. Thus the pages upon pages of Baronesses and minor royalty placed across the page from the most pop of the Pop. Apart from the inspiring visuals, it is that amazing tone of Vreeland's , a written voice with a distinctive grain that has made this book legendary. I don't want to go so far as to dub "Allure" the greatest fashion book of all time but it is amazing to witness the finesse and the subtleties of Vreeland's super-impositions. However you find a copy...indulge yourself !