Diana Vreeland

"This book has wonderful photographs and is beautifully produced. Vreeland was a hugely influential fashion columnist and editor, working at Harper’s Bazaar and then American Vogue . She covered the great fashion era from the 30s to the 70s. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter She worked as a consultant for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after Vogue fired her in 1971. She put on some incredible exhibitions that really showed fashion as art – that theme again. The pictures in the book from the 1973 Balenciaga exhibition are amazing. The director of the Met at the time thought museums should show things in new ways and push boundaries. He recognised that Diana Vreeland had the same vision. She was very forward-thinking."