Born to an aristocratic family in Belle Epoque Paris, Vreeland’s early life had a romantic, Zelig-like quality to it. She spent her childhood horseback riding with Buffalo Bill, attending performances of the Ballet Russes and rubbing shoulders with her parents’ famous friends like Vaslav Nijinsky. In New York in 1924, she married her husband, banker Thomas Reed Vreeland, whom she would always claim was the love of her life. The pair settled first in Paris, where Diana enjoyed personal fittings with Coco Chanel, and then in London, where she opened a lingerie boutique, outfitting Wallis Simpson for a weekend rendezvous with King Edward VIII. “The rest as you know is history,” Vreeland later boasted. “My little lingerie shop had brought down the throne.”   

When the Vreelands returned to New York in 1934, Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief Carmel Snow tapped the ever-stylish Diana to join the masthead. It was a prescient hire. Unlike her predecessors, who took their fashion cues from conservative Park Avenue doyennes, Vreeland pushed the envelope. She was one of the first editors to feature models in blue jeans, thong sandals and the bikini. Citing this relentless pursuit of the new, many regard her as the first true fashion editor.

Vreeland stayed at Harper’s Bazaar for 26 years. However, when the magazine passed her over for the editor-in-chief position, she jumped ship to Vogue, where, in 1962, she took the helm. The next nine years redefined the magazine. Vreeland took Vogue from a stuffy society rag to a publication perfectly in tune with the ’60s and its spirit of rebellion and creative freedom, offering meaty profiles on rock musicians (Mick Jagger, John Lennon) and exotic fashion shoots in far-flung locales.   

In 1971, Vreeland left Vogue and soon thereafter resurfaced at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. There, too, she worked her magic, dusting off the cobwebs and breathing new life into the museum with glamorous retrospectives on subjects like Yves Saint Laurent and classic Hollywood. Though Vreeland passed away in 1989, her legacy lives on through books, films and assorted projects. Most recently, her grandson Alexander launched a fragrance collection based entirely on her favorite scents, bottling it in glass vials tinted red (her signature color).

To celebrate the life of this extraordinary (and extraordinarily violet) woman, VIOLET GREY reached out to an assortment of her former colleagues and friends and asked them to speak to her lasting influence in the fashion world as well as share their fondest memories. Tidbits from those conversations, below.