The Vreeland Vogue

She dwells in a world of beauty, yet no one has ever called her pretty. She likens other women to swans and skylarks, but finds herself described (by such an expert as Designer Cecil Beaton) as "an authoritative crane." Though she is a generous flatterer of the physical attributes of others, even her own admiring friends must strain to return a compliment ("Well," said one, straining, "she has a strange and marvelous spine"). Her walk has been described as a camel's gait, her nose as something stolen off a cigar-store Indian. Yet thousands of women cut their hair because of her, cream their skins, shorten their sleeves, and belt their coats, all at the iron whim of a woman whose face is as rarely photographed and widely unknown as the moon's other side.

Her name is no more familiar. But Diana (pronounced Deeann) Vreeland is better known than her anonymity tells; as the new editor in chief of Vogue Magazine, she is the professional bellwether to a certain special clique of chic. She has long been a flamboyant and energetic tastemaker; designers have been known to tremble at her nod, customers at private showings to pick purely what she picks, manufacturers and merchandisers to watch her every move with rapt fixation. She is, in fact, probably the single most fabled, venerated and respected backstage fashion force in the world today.

Leopard & Incense. It is a role she adores, and she plays it to the hilt. At close to 60, she moves with supersonic speed. She doesn't walk, she strides; she doesn't talk, she broadcasts. She surrounds herself with the calculated and the outlandish, paints her Manhattan office walls adulterous red, covers the floor with simulated leopard skin, burns incense through the day. She invents cliches and talks in capital letters, whether dismissing a contender for the best-dressed ranks ("On her, EVERYTHING looks like a chandelier") or praising a swatch of material ("I ADORE that pink, it's the navy BLUE of India"), with the sort of outrageous rhetoric that has reduced hardened fashion types to awed obeisance.

Mrs. Vreeland took over Vogue's helm only four months ago on the retirement of longtime (30 years) Editor Jessica Daves. Other editors, such as Harper's Bazaar's thoughtful, tranquil Nancy White, function in an atmosphere of relative calm; not so Deeann. In her 27 years at Harper's, most of them as fashion editor, she had already established her legend as a human maelstrom. She tore in and out of offices, trailing hats, belts, secretaries and photographers behind her, churned around designers at work, doing a touch of pinning here and there, patted on makeup and cut models' hair herself. It was while she was at Harper's that she originated the now legendary "Why Don't You?" column, peppered with such items as "Why don't you bring back from Central Europe a huge white baroque porcelain stove to stand in your front hall? . . . Why don't you have your bed made in China? . . . Why don't you wash your child's hair in champagne?"

Salt & Air. She was born and raised in Europe, where her father was a stockbroker, and her only training for her job was a schooling in the fashionable international life (she married Banker T. Reed Vreeland in 1924). "I had never THOUGHT of working," she explains, "and the only thing I knew was where to go to have my clothes made, so it seemed only NATURAL to go into fashion."

Vogue, she claims, has not changed since she took over. But the models look, to some, more noticeably feminine, the clothes distinctly more sexy, and the current issue's living-color portrait of a full-breasted, naked girl supine on a beach seems certainly new. To Dee-ann this is "simply an evocation of the FEELING of salt and air; MY GOD, you'd think people's lives would be so FULL they wouldn't even notice."

Still, Vogue and Vreeland are not about to endorse the bosom. Says Mrs. Vreeland: "Women should be thin. It's fit. It's the Middle Europeans who have always liked flesh. Probably in the Klondike it went rather big too. But think how much easier it is getting in and out of cabs without carting a big bust around, like a charwoman, in front of you." The look of the perfect woman? "First, she must be HEALTHY. Then there must be VANITY, do you know? In the best sense of the word. Next, physical, real physical vitality and stamina. After that, the selection of clothes comes rather naturally."

Perfume & Flowers. Dee-ann can tell in an instant, and does, loudly, what she thinks is fashion and what is not: "It's UTTERLY bad; it's COMPLETELY divine." Says Designer Stella Sloat: "She always picks the sleeper. She is the champion of the nothing look." She is credited with originating the craze for skinny pants, the sleeveless dress, turtlenecks, and the Italian haircut.

Her day begins at close to 8 o'clock, and for the next three hours, her office is at home. Small by Park Avenue standards (it has only two bedrooms, both Vreeland sons being married and away), it is as expansive as its owner, filled with a fastidious clutter of collections (sea shells, rare bits of glass and silver, tortoise-shell snuffboxes), stamped throughout with the special insignia of the impeccable Vreeland taste. Perfume is everywhere, and, for Deeann, flowers are the basic ingredient. They splash in 18 varieties, out of vases, off the wallpaper and sheets, all over her bedroom.

She has most of her dresses made ("I am NOT a shopper"). "Some little woman runs them up for her," says the very chic Mrs. William Paley, "and of course you wouldn't dream of asking her where the material came from." She has worn the same shoes for 30 years (specially designed T-strap sandals with round closed toes and square low heels), never wears any more of a hat than a snood. She rouges her ears, has a manicure, pedicure, massage and hairdo daily, drinks Mountain Valley Mineral Water with the gusto of an addict. When she stays in hotels, she takes along her own sheets and pillowcases (with bedjackets to match). "She must be happy," says the very elegant Mrs. Winston ("Ceezee") Guest, "because she's only been married once." Says Mrs. Vreeland: "I LOVE my life. It's DREAMY."

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