Life Lessons from Diana Vreeland

Welcome to Life Lessons. In honor of Libra season, we’re shining the spotlight on Diana Vreeland– fashion empress, Editor-in-Chief at Vogue in the ’60s, and all-around New York icon. This week, we’re flipping through the pages of Vreeland’s cover story from our December 1980 issue, in which the 75-year-old sits down for a conversation with the late writer Jonathan Lieberson about the many lives she’s lived, her thoughts on birth control, and why it’s only natural to think about money. So sit back and grab a pen—you just might learn a thing or two.

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“I fought for a long time to be like other people. Of course, 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.”

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“So many people have asked me so many questions– and none of them are interesting to anybody, not even interesting to answer.”

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“I read everything! I would have read the phone book if you put it in front of me. I just read.”

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“I always felt that money was important. Isn’t that curious? And just think how far back I go. There was a time when it was considered vulgar and unnecessary to pursue money, but today anyone who doesn’t believe in money must be out of their minds! I mean, it’s only intelligent to wish to look after yourself properly. It is wonderful to have a lot of it– I was brought up with people like that– but we just weren’t that rich. Consequently, I thought about it all the time. I’ve never stopped thinking about it my whole life.”

“Perhaps I was cut out to be a wonderful housewife, with a marvelous sense of cooking, being with my friends, running a perfect house. But I am not ambitious towards anything.”

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“I’m what you might call an idea-ist. You take my idea, and you do something with it and I’ll be behind you and follow it up and through. I have these… spasms of ideas.”

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“Playing hard to get is hardly the point… elegance is, as the French say, la réfus. But of course that has to be edited. If you refuse everything, you are as dry as a bone. Selection is the point.”

“Why are they just flowers? Why aren’t they your whole life? What’s the matter with the best things in life? Look at most people. Why are they working? Perhaps, for one day, to be able to see or know beauty, humanity, softness…”

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“To me, The Pill was the turning point in the whole younger generation, because it created a totally different society. It was so much more important than, say, the TV set, which was something you had to have because it amused you. The Pill was true freedom. Girls and boys could do anything; they were protected. It changed everything.”