Noelle McCarthy: Notes from a style sensation

The legend of editor Diana Vreeland, here with model Marisa Berenson, is showcased in a book of her memos and the film The Eye has to Travel. Picture / Supplied

A dose of Diana Vreeland never fails whenever you're in danger of letting yourself go. Vreeland ran Vogue throughout the 1960s, until she was fired, basically for spending too much money on photoshoots. She famously sent glamazon model Veruschka to Japan, a trip that to this day is still one of the most lavish and expensive in Vogue history, as well as flying the likes of Marisa Berenson to Iran and Lauren Hutton to Ubud.

Vreeland had Vision with a capital V, and she spared no expense attempting to realise it. From Cecil Beaton to Richard Avedon, the greatest photographers of the 20th century were regular collaborators. When she finally left Vogue, it was with the distinction of having taken a fashion magazine and turned it into a bona fide cultural touchstone. The visionary look of Vogue throughout the 60s is a testament to Vreeland's preternatural instinct for what would delight and inspire readers.

As her famous memos attest, it wasn't just the big picture that mattered to her, but also the very smallest details. Collected together in a big handsome book, those memos are a fascinating insight into Vreeland's visual genius, not to mention her terrifying talent for micromanagement :

Memos: The Vogue Years by Diana Vreeland, published by Rizzoli.

"I repeat again the importance of knee socks." (December 1967)

"Please don't forget to use a lot of lip gloss on all the girls as it is the large generous mouth that we really believe in.' (October 1968)

"Please study the cut of the espadrille. The proper Basque espadrille has a totally straight line which is the whole chic." (April 1970)

Nothing escaped her eye and not so much as an earring went into her magazine without her say-so.

While some of these memos have a Mugatu-esque imperiousness that's impossible not to laugh at ("The sticky situation with fringe is, of course, completely serious", "The anklebone of a gypsy always shows"), their overall effect is inspiring. For Vreeland, the act of getting dressed was alchemy; when mixed correctly, various elements of colour, texture and proportion gave a woman the power to transform herself completely.

This was the dream she was selling her readers, and this was why she demanded such specificity in the cut of a safari jacket, or the weight of a string of pearls. Her memos were exhaustive, yet reading them is anything but exhausting. Sure, there's a daunting emphasis on luxury ("Use real jewels by all means", "Cindy, I need to see these coloured furs") and the clothes Vreeland and her team were styling were far beyond the means of ordinary women, but she was always alive to what the girl on the street was wearing ("Don't let's forget denim", "I am extremely disappointed that nobody has taken the slightest interest in freckles").

Vreeland grasped instinctively what we are forgetting in this era of Asos and outlet stores; that style is a product not so much of spending but of discernment. This is the same woman who, in one of her famous "Why Don't You" columns for Harper's Bazaar, advocated tying a simple black satin ribbon around your wrist rather than a jewelled bracelet.

Her job may have been selling glamour, but she was unafraid to tell readers they didn't always have to spend money in order to look distinctive. As she puts it, in a memo from 1970: "Ingredients of beauty are there in bones - your beauty has to be created - the beauty is within one ... One must live in ecstasy. One must have a feeling of joy. This is vital, and this is really what makes the world go around ..."

- VIVA