Memory, Identity and Neighbourhoods, Post 4

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, is a 2011 documentary by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng. It depicts the life of fashion icon Diana Vreeland from her work as a fashion editor for Harpers Bazar magazine, editor-in-chief for American Vogue and a consultant at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Immediately this documentary lured me in and kept me interested as it was incredibly aesthetically pleasing with their being countless shots of Vreeland’s work for Harpers Bazar and Vogue. There was a wide variety of interviewees that detailed there own unique relationship with Vreeland which helped build her character for the viewer. Something I was unsure about was the way in which the documentary included recordings of a woman pretending to be Vreeland who used material based on recordings of conversations that took place between her and George Plimpton who helped write her memoirs, D.V., in 1983. It felt quite strange and inauthentic to me to have someone else masquerading as Vreeland and I questioned how realistic this depiction really was. I appreciated that this documentary attempted to give both perspectives of Vreelands character. There are several interviewees that question how accurate her understandings of particular cultures she claims to love are as at times her depictions of them in her MET exhibitions are inaccurate. Furthermore her sons describe her absence throughout their childhood and even adulthood as Vreeland was constantly working. However by the end I still found myself admiring Vreeland for her confidence, passion and impact on the fashion industry.

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