D.V. (20 page)

Excuse me for interrupting you, but you know how sometimes if you don't say something while you're thinking of it, you've lost it forever? I'm thinking of Diane de Poitiers. I think the school of Fontainebleau paintings of her are so divine. Whether she looked like that or not, I don't know, but in the memoirs of the period you read that her skin was fantastic. When she hunted with the King, you know, she wore a mask so that the wind and the ravages of winter didn't touch her. Under a full moon she would go out on a terrace naked for a “moon bath.” And she took three cold baths a day—fantastic discipline. But what I'm thinking about right now is the motto she had over her bed. It read: “
Seule
.” Naturally, she wasn't
that
alone—she had two kings, after all.

When I think of my childhood, I was always alone. When I think of the war years it was the same…and now I'm alone again. But I knew
how
to be alone because I've been
so often
alone. Maybe
that's
the secret of life.

Still, you have to begin somewhere. It's like when I was thrown by the taxi—I didn't tell you about that?

It was three weeks before the “Vanity Fair” exhibition
opened at the Museum. I had just put one foot into the cab, the cab started to go, and I was thrown back on my head and dragged along the ground. The whole time—this is
while
I was being
dragged—
I kept thinking, “You've got three weeks to go before the show opens—you've
got
to be all right.” I heard my head hitting the concrete. Damnedest thing to hear your own head bouncing on the curb. And then the driver saw me, stopped the cab, got out, and looked at me on the ground.

“Oh, my God!” he said. “What have I
done
!”

“You started to move,” I said, “and I wasn't in the car. Why did you move?”

“I have no idea!”

“Now listen, there
is
a mirror, and you can always look to see if your passenger's managed to get in. But never mind—no bones are broken. No one's hurt. Let's get on with it.”

So I finally got in the cab, and the driver said to me, “Lady, I've got to tell you something—this is my first day out in the cab, and you're the first person I've driven in my life.”

“You've got to begin somewhere,” I said. “Never look back, boy! Never look back…except in the mirror to see if the person's in the car!”

I've taken a number of blows in my life, but I think they've all been for the best. Never look back! I refuse to think anything else.

A life like mine has developed in the most fantastic way over the last years. Before that, I had my place, I did my bit, I
really
worked—no three people have ever worked harder,
seriously—
but it was routine. Fashion is always
fantaisie
, it was always unreal to me; but it was routine. Even now that I'm no longer officially in the fashion business…I am still in the business of fashion, because it's the only life I've ever known.

Being recognized in the street for my involvement in fashion is truly fantastic. It amazes me every time. I mean, I've been recognized by
cab drivers
. I just can't get over it. I've given this a lot of thought, and I think that it's because fashion must be even stronger
than the lure of the stage. I really have come to that conclusion. Fashion must be the most intoxicating
release
from the banality of the world.

When strangers stop me, I have the flair to say, “Of course, of course…” and extend my hand. This started about ten years ago. As soon as I started to see less clearly, I lost all my shyness. I was never shy in business, but I always had a terror of meeting people. Now, instead of
suffering
this terrible thing of seeing everyone and everything much too clearly, I hardly see anything.

Andy Warhol came to photograph me the other day. Andy's photographed me hundreds of times…and awfully well. He knows what he's doing. He clicks the shutter once and he's done. Then he'll sit with you. When Andy came, he said he'd arrived with an assistant. I hadn't noticed because my eyesight is so poor.

“What do you need an assistant for?” I asked. “Are you like French
Vogue
that you think you need a big entourage?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You don't need him. Why don't you ask him to go?”

“You'll like him,” Andy said. “He's very good-looking.”

“Don't lie to me, Andy.”

I asked the assistant, “Are you good-looking?”

No reply. I asked: “Why doesn't he speak?”

“He's Chinese,” Andy said. “His name is Ming Vase.”

You never know what you're going to get with Andy Warhol.

Of course, on the telephone it's very easy for me since you don't have to see. I simply introduce myself and tell whoever it is exactly why I've called.

That is how I got the Légion d'Honneur. I asked for it. I was told by someone quite reliable that you only get it if you ask for it, so I asked. At the time it hadn't been given out in America for years. De Gaulle stopped giving it outside of France because right after the war it was being given to every waiter in New York who served French brandy. Instead, when I was on
Vogue
, I got the Ordre du Mérite, which is very nice and pretty—it's blue and silver, from
the time of Louis XIV, reintroduced by de Gaulle—but it was not the Légion d'Honneur. And that's all I really, really wanted.

I'm crazy about medals and orders. Just after Barbara Hutton married the Laotian, she had his Laotian order of the million elephants and one parasol done over in diamonds and white enamel. Beautiful! It was so elaborate. I was talking about it in the office one afternoon…and somehow or another news of my admiration got to the Laotian minister here at the United Nations. He wrote me a charming letter saying, “Mrs. Vreeland, what an honor to have you so interested in our order. Yes indeed, it is a splendid order, and I hope you enjoy looking at
my
order.” So he sent his medal to me. I kept it for two days. It was rather shabby, his—a piece of tin with a bit of white paint on it that was chipped. It needed Barbara Hutton's hand. Anyway it dazzled my imagination.

But we all have our dreams. We all want
one
thing. That little red ribbon of the Légion d'Honneur—it was something so associated with my childhood in France, when I used to see men with it in their buttonholes. It's impossible to explain, really, but to me it was France, where I was born and brought up. I can remember the people coming into my parents' house with the little red ribbon—and those were the people I had my eye on. And that's what I wanted all those years.

The French ambassador came up from Washington to the consulate to make the presentation. As he pinned it on me I shouted, “
Enfin, enfin, enfin!
”…that night could have happily been the end of my life.

There's so much I still haven't told you. Have I ever told you about my obsession with horses? About the horses that used to come around the corner of Park Avenue and Seventy-ninth Street? I have? About the little toy stall I used to have in my room and about how I used to water my little horses all night long? I
have
? Did I tell you about Josephine Baker and sitting next to her cheetah at the Mirabar? I did? Did I tell you about the zebras lining the driveway at San Simeon? You believed that, didn't you? Did I tell you that Lindbergh flew over Brewster? It could have been someone else, but
who cares
—Fake it
! Did I tell you about the elephants at the coronation. Of course I did. What about hitting Swifty Lazar in the nose? Well, I never did
that
, you know. Why, it would break my arm! It would never heal. I usually know when I'm repeating myself—in other words, the inspirations aren't coming. There's only one thing in life, and that's the continual renewal of inspiration. Mmm…but as I never seem to know what I'm saying, the chances are I've repeated myself
occasionally
.

“In my end is my beginning.” Who said that?—Mary, Queen of Scots, no? Look it up.

But where do you begin? The first thing to do, my love, is to arrange to be born in Paris. That's how we began our little conversation. After that, everything follows quite naturally.

I'm sure I chose to be born in Paris. I'm sure I chose my parents. I'm sure I chose to be called Diana. And I'm sure I chose to have a nurse called Pink. Don't ask me her other names. People called Pink don't have other names.

Cover design by Allison Saltzman

Cover photograph © 1977 by Bill King