Diana Vreeland - Early Life

Early Life

She was born as Diana Dalziel in Paris, France, at 5 Avenue Bois de Boulogne (Avenue Foch since World War I). Vreeland was the eldest daughter of American socialite mother Emily Key Hoffman (1876-1928) and British father Frederick Young Dalziel (d. 1960). Hoffman was a descendant of George Washington's brother as well as a cousin of Francis Scott Key. She also was a distant cousin of Pauline de Rothschild (1908-1976). Vreeland had one sister, Alexandra (1907-1999), who later married Sir Alexander Davenport Kinloch, 12th Baronet (1902-1982).

Vreeland's family emigrated to the United States at the outbreak of World War I, and moved to 15 East 77th Street in New York, where they became prominent figures in society. Vreeland was sent to dancing school and was a pupil of Michel Fokine, the only Imperial Ballet master to ever leave Russia, and later of Louis Harvy Chalif. Vreeland performed in Anna Pavlova's Gavotte at Carnegie Hall.

On March 1, 1924, Diana Dalziel married Thomas Reed Vreeland (1899–1966), a banker, at St. Thomas' Church in New York, with whom she would have two sons: Tim (Thomas Reed Vreeland, Jr.) born 1925, who became an architect as well as a professor of architecture at UCLA, and Frecky (Frederick Dalziel Vreeland) b. 1927 (later U.S. ambassador to Morocco). A week before her wedding, the New York Times reported that her mother had been named co‑respondent in the divorce proceedings of Sir Charles Ross and his second wife, Patricia. The ensuing society scandal estranged Vreeland and her mother, who died in September 1928 in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

After their honeymoon, the Vreelands moved to Albany, New York, and raised their two sons, staying there until 1929. They then moved to 17 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, London, previously the home of Wilkie Collins and Edmund Gosse. During her time in London, she danced with the Tiller Girls and met Cecil Beaton, who became a lifelong friend. Like Syrie Maugham and Elsie de Wolfe, other society women that ran their own boutiques, Diana operated a lingerie business near Berkeley Square whose clients included Wallis Simpson and Mona Williams. She often visited Paris, where she would buy her clothes, mostly from Chanel, whom she had met in 1926. She was one of fifteen American women presented to King George V and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace on May 18, 1933. In 1937 her husband's job brought them back to New York, where they lived for the remainder of their lives.

"Before I went to work for Harper’s Bazaar in 1937, I had been leading a wonderful life in Europe. That meant traveling, seeing beautiful places, having marvelous summers, studying and reading a great deal of the time." These travels are the subject of a documentary called The Eye Has to Travel, a film that pays tribute to the life of Diana Vreeland, which debuted in September 2012 at The Angelika Theater in New York City.