Lisa Immordino Vreeland, director of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Must Travel - profile
The filmmaker is the granddaughter-in-law of the legendary fashionista
Background Despite never meeting her grandmother-in-law, the fashion icon Diana Vreeland, Lisa Immordino Vreeland has dedicated the past few years to documenting the story of this influential editor. Having previously worked in the fashion industry as a consultant, Lisa Vreeland turned her hand to filmmaking for her debut documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel. It premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2011.
On the genesis of the film ‘It started as a book, then I realised I just wanted to do a little bit more than that and also to be able to have the chance to tell her story in a contemporary way for a younger audience. Once you see the movie, she’s so fantastic you have to have her on screen! I realised when I was doing the work for the book that the imagery was so rich and it’s so nice to be able to see it on screen.’
On capturing the real Diana Vreeland ‘I always felt that she had been slightly misunderstood. I think when people think of Diana Vreeland they always think of this very extroverted woman, who wore a certain type of make-up – a lot of rouge on her cheeks… But I felt there was a whole other level underneath her that needed to be seen.’
On researching the film ‘The process was fantastic. I was living in Paris at the time and I was very lucky because I was in the Vogue offices going through all of their archives. You can’t get much better than that.
On the similarities between Vreeland and current Vogue editor Anna Wintour ‘I don’t want to make any comparisons because there are none at all to be made. The fact is that Diana Vreeland is the original one and there’s a reason that she continues to resonate in fashion because she’s the real thing.’
Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel is on selected release from Fri 21 Sep.