Venturer Spotlight: Diana Vreeland

Venturers

Dec 17

The Venturer Spotlight is our ongoing series highlighting women whose stories deserve to be told, as often and loudly as possible.

These are women who’ve chosen to live passionately, and to continue to question, challenge, and venture out with bravery and curiosity in whatever field or circumstance they found themselves in. These are our role models, and the women we want to be when we grow up.

HERE’S WHY WE LOVE HER…

As a magazine editor for over 30 years, including guiding Vogue through the 1960s as Editor In Chief (can you imagine?), she didn’t just document or influence fashion… she helped change the conversation about what fashion is and should be, and what it means to have a personal style. She chaired the Met Costume Institute for over 30 years and created the modern Met Gala. Most of all though, she is pretty universally credited with the careers of an almost exhausting list of photographers, models, fashion designers, and creatives who have in their own right gone on to shape the visual landscape of the 20th century.

It’s kind of hard to quantify exactly the impact one incredibly opinionated woman with a good gut for talent could have on not just the fashion industry but the entire cultural landscape of a country and a time period.

Coming through the 1950s, with its’ rather rigid idea of what beauty and appropriate ladylike behavior was, she changed the overall cultural conversation about style, attitude, and individualism. She started showcasing a women’s flaws and highlighting them as what made her beautiful in the first place. She profiled a diverse range of models, musicians, and celebrities for the first time, and treated a magazine layout as a form of artistic expression instead of an extended advertisement for clothes. Above all though, she was just a full and abundant personality. She marched to the beat of her own drum, she pushed conversations to the edges, and she was unabashedly herself at all times.