Diana Vreeland Quotes

It's not about the dress you wear, but it's about the life you lead in the dress.

— Diana Vreeland

“You don't have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive.”

— Diana Vreeland

“A funny person is funny only for so long, but a wit can sit down and go on being spellbinding forever. One is not meant to laugh. One stays quiet and marvels. Spontaneously witty talk is without question the most fascinating entertainment there is.”

— Diana Vreeland

You gotta have style to get up in the morning

— Diana Vreeland

“Unshined shoes are the end of civilization.”

— Diana Vreeland

“People who eat white bread have no dreams.”

— Diana Vreeland

“What sells is hope.”

— Diana Vreeland

Beauty is in all beings that love and are loved, animals and children, and if older women have it, it is because they feel completely free in this world and in their lives as they feel close to God ... and they are spiritually in tune with the universe. December 6 1968. Letter to Miss Anita Colby, 3 East 78th Street, New York

— Diana Vreeland

“<"To bewitch" is to me always slightly artificial as it is always put on
whereas witchery is a form of naturalness that some people can't help, and the world judges that they don't create it ... > November 15 1967 memo to Mrs. Loew Gross re "THE ROMANTIC POINT OF VIEW”

— Diana Vreeland

“Pink is the navy blue of India.”

— Diana Vreeland

“Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.”

— Diana Vreeland

“Poor, darling fellow - he died of food. He was killed by the dinner table.”

— Diana Vreeland

“No one cuts backs like he did. No one knows what a back is anymore.”

— Diana Vreeland

“The bikini is the most important thing since the atom bomb.”

— Diana Vreeland

If you think all the time every day of your life, you might as well kill yourself today and be happier tomorrow.

— Diana Vreeland

You're not supposed to give people what they want, you're supposed to give them what they don't know that they want yet.

— Diana Vreeland

“I'm terrible on facts. But I always have an idea. If you have an idea, you're well ahead”

— Diana Vreeland

We all need a splash of bad taste. No taste is what I am against.

— Diana Vreeland

A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste-it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against.

— Diana Vreeland

“The best thing about London is Paris,”

— Diana Vreeland

Balenciaga often said that women did not have to be perfect or beautiful to wear his clothes. When they wore his clothes, they became beautiful.

— Diana Vreeland

“I sincerely believe that energy grows from itself and the more energy you expand the more you create within yourself.”

— Diana Vreeland

“Still, my dream in life is to come home and think of absolutely nothing. After all, you can't think all the time.”

— Diana Vreeland

“This world without a leopard ... I mean, who would want to be here?!”

— Diana Vreeland

Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world.

— Diana Vreeland

“I adore artifice. I always have.”

— Diana Vreeland

“Balenciaga was incredibleI was madly infatuated with his clothes. His clothes were devastating. One fainted. One simply blew up and died.”

— Diana Vreeland

“I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress.”

— Diana Vreeland

“Why don't you have a room done up in every color green? This will take months, years, to collect, but it will be delightful-a melange of plants, green glass, green porcelains, and furniture covered in sad greens, gay greens, clear, faded, and poison greens?”

— Diana Vreeland

This is a great shame, but of course there have to be some things in life that not everybody can have, and great perfume is one of them.

— Diana Vreeland

“One thing I hold against Americans is that they have no flair for the rain. They seem unsettled by it; it's against them: they take it as an assault, an inconvenience! But rain is so wonderfully cleansing, so refreshing, so calming ...”

— Diana Vreeland

“You can see and feel everything in clothes.”

— Diana Vreeland

“I've never met a leopard print I didn't like.”

— Diana Vreeland

“A world without leopards, well, who would want to live in it?”

— Diana Vreeland

“To be contented-that's for the cows.”

— Diana Vreeland

“I've always remained totally myself, which is to say, without an idea ... of what to do.”

— Diana Vreeland

I was always sort of a loner, I suppose. I always had to think out everything for myself ... I suppose that is what you call a loner.

— Diana Vreeland

“Power has got to be the most intoxicating thing in the world-and of all forms of power the most intoxicating is fame.”

— Diana Vreeland

“My life has been more influenced by books than by any other one thing.”

— Diana Vreeland

“Peanut butter is the greatest invention since Christianity,”

— Diana Vreeland

“If you had a bump on your nose, it made no difference so long as you had a marvelous body & good carriage. You held your head high, & you were a beauty You knew how to water-ski, & how to take a jet plane fast in the morning, arrive anywhere, & be anyone when you got off.”

— Diana Vreeland

“Before even the technique, there is a dream. Chanel had it. The dream is everything.”

— Diana Vreeland

“I like to indulge myself by sitting up late without having to do anything in the morning.”

— Diana Vreeland

“I think allure is something around you, like a perfume or like a scent. It's like a memory ... it pervades.”

— Diana Vreeland

“When I discovered dancing, I learned to dream.”

— Diana Vreeland

“Money has nothing to do with style at all, but naturally it helps every situation.”

— Diana Vreeland

This is a weakness of the world. Someone thinks they've discovered something for the first time. They want to be authoritative about it.

— Diana Vreeland

“No one knows how hard one works.”

— Diana Vreeland

I wonder about prisoners. They're told, "You are free, you are innocent, you can go anywhere." I'm sure they usually feel nothing. They don't burst into tears or hysterics or joy or "I told you so." It's nothing. To be on the straight path isn't a bloody thing. It's just ordinary.

— Diana Vreeland

I'm a person who is only invested in the pleasures and enjoyments of life. All the rest is left to the men. I've always remained what you might call "feminine" about the whole [work] thing.

— Diana Vreeland