Renovar Fall 2014
fashion show
8pm
$15

If Vogue is the fashion bible then Diana Vreeland is the high priestess. She preached style as a way of life and the importance of living beautifully, she said “a new dress doesn’t get you anywhere; it’s the life you’re living in the dress.”

The divinely quotable Vreeland was a magazine editor, fashion curator and life enthusiast. She was fashion advisor and lifetime friend to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Truman Capote described her “as one of the great Americans who had, more than anyone, improved the level of taste in American women” and former assistant Andre Leon Talley regards her as one of the most important women in his entire life.

Her impeccable appearance and grand manner was bewitching to all who knew her. Diana’s was from a world of regalia, custom shoes, and fittings at courtier houses. This was a woman whose elegance extended to having the soles of her shoes polished and her dollar bills pressed.

Today, her signature epigrammatic style, her strong art direction, and attention to detail continues to inspire. At a time when costume was regarded by academics as too frivolous for serious examination, Vreeland said “Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes.” Diana had a verbal brilliance, recalling a Balenciaga show in the early 1960s: “One simply fainted. It was possible to blow up and die.” Although she was known to embellish, mixing truth with fiction, a term she coined as “faction.” The world she created was one of fantasy and splendor.

She wasn’t a typical beauty but in the 1930’s her style caught the attention of Carmel Snow, the editor and chief of Harpers Bazaar, beginning Vreeland’s 26 year tenure at the magazine. She wrote a column, “Why Don’t You…” featuring style and fashion suggestions for the rich. The column was a personal credo: Why don’t you be original? By the 60’s, Diana would become editor and chief of Vogue, bringing the magazine to the fashion powerhouse it is today. Famous for her memos to models and photographers shooting on location, she directed fashion into fantasy to fill the pages of Vogue. She reigned there for almost a decade until she was fired in 1971, accused of being out of touch and having too expensive of an editorial style. At age 69, Vreeland began the most successful act of her career as a Special Consultant at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum. She curated 15 costume exhibitions including The World of Balenciaga, The 10’s The 20’s and The 30’s, and Hollywood Costume. Her openings attracted celebrities, with lines out the door and turning the MET into a scene out of Studio 54.

“Give’em What They Never Knew They Wanted” tells the inspiring story of Diana Vreeland. Beyond the lacquered exterior and perfectly manicured talons lies the power to channel personal style and own it. The collection reflects Diana’s love for Chanel, Balenciaga and Halston in luxury sportswear and exaggerated silhouettes. Presenting articulate clothes with alluring personality, Renovar captures Diana’s sense of adventure with wildly chic animal prints, theatrical snuggies and a over-the-top kaftan jumpsuit that thrill to pure madness.

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