Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011)

Directed by: Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, Frédéric Tcheng | 88 minutes | documentary | With: Diana Vreeland

In 1983, eighty-year-old Diane Vreeland asked journalist George Plimpton to write her epitaph. The interviews he conducted with her in order to write them form the blueprint for the documentary ‘Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel’.

Diana Vreeland has been one of the most influential women in the fashion world for most of her life. Having worked for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, she has left her mark on the way fashion magazines are made. The fact that fashion today is not only seen as the clothing industry but also as an art form is largely due to her. And all this while she was born the ugly duckling of her family, with a mother who called her ‘her ugly little monster’. Instead of an insecure wallflower, Diana grew up into a flamboyant and stubborn woman who would play an important role in fashion.

Diana didn’t like to talk about her feelings and the setbacks in her life, so don’t expect a personal story in ‘Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel’. Questions about what it was like not getting along with her mother or being brushed aside from her husband’s death. Interviews with, for example, her sons also show that she did not like to share her emotional life. But the lack of insight into her emotions doesn’t make this documentary any less good, nor does it make you unsympathetic to her.

What ‘Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel’ does make clear is that Vreeland was a very passionate and visionary woman who had a lot of love and an eye for beautiful things. She could see the beauty in things before other people saw it. “Don’t give the people what they want, give them what they don’t know they want”. And that talent is actually exactly what made her so unique.

‘Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel’ is an incredibly fine documentary about a special woman whose life spans a large part of the twentieth century. In addition to being a documentary about her, thanks to her enormous influence on the fashion world, it is also a film about the evolution of that world from the 1920s to the 1970s, especially about the role of fashion journalism. It is unbelievable to see what this woman has brought about and how she has started the careers of many models, actresses, musicians, photographers and designers. In the film it is said that Diana did not think a boring story was worth telling. However, her story is far from boring and is therefore more than worthwhile. ‘Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel’ is an inspiring documentary about a striking woman.