She worked for the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar and as editor-in-chief at Vogue, later becoming a special consultant to the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Vreeland was the eldest daughter of an American socialite mother, Emily Key Hoffman, and a British stockbroker[6] father, Frederick Young Dalziel.

Vreeland was sent to dancing school as a pupil of Michel Fokine, the only Imperial Ballet master ever to leave Russia, and later of Louis Harvy Chalif.

[9] A week before Diana's 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.

[citation needed] After the Vreelands' honeymoon, they moved to Brewster, New York, where they raised their two sons and remained until 1929, when they relocated to 17 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, London, previously the home of Wilkie Collins and Edmund Gosse.

Like Syrie Maugham and Elsie de Wolfe, society women who ran their own boutiques, Diana operated a lingerie business near Berkeley Square.

"[11] A biographical documentary of Vreeland, The Eye has to Travel,[12] debuted in September 2012 at the Angelika Theater in New York City.

[14] From 1936 until her resignation, Diana Vreeland ran a column for Harper's Bazaar called "Why Don't You...?,"full of random, imaginative suggestions.

"[15] According to Vreeland, "The one that seemed to draw the most attention was [...] "[Why Don't You] [w]ash your blond child's hair in dead champagne, as they do in France?"

The Harper's Bazaar cover for March 1943[17] shows the newly minted model (not yet a Hollywood star) Lauren Bacall, posing near a Red Cross office.

Vreeland directed the shoot, later describing the image as "an extraordinary photograph, in which Bacall is leaning against the outside door of a Red Cross blood donor room.

[20] Until her resignation from Harper's Bazaar, she worked closely with Louise Dahl-Wolfe,[21] Richard Avedon, Nancy White,[22] and Alexey Brodovitch.

Richard Avedon recalled when he first met her, at Harper's Bazaar, she "looked up at me for the first time and said, 'Aberdeen, Aberdeen, doesn't it make you want to cry?'

[28] In spite of being extremely successful, Diana Vreeland was paid a relatively small salary by the Hearst Corporation, which owned Harper's Bazaar.

"[23] In December 1962 Rudi Gernreich first conceived of a topless swimsuit, but he didn't intend to produce the design commercially.

Then in 1971, like a large wooden door swinging closed, silencing a steady wind, Vreeland was let go from her position as editor-chief of Vogue.

[39] Artist Greer Lankton created a life-size portrait doll of Vreeland that is on display in the Costume Institute's library.

[40] In 1989, she died of a heart attack at age 85 at Lenox Hill Hospital, on Manhattan's Upper East Side in New York City.

Created and overseen by her estate, DianaVreeland.com[41] is dedicated to her work and career, presenting her accomplishments and influence, and revealing how and why she achieved her notoriety and distinction.

[42] In the 1941 musical Lady in the Dark by Moss Hart, Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin the character of Alison Du Bois was based on Vreeland.

[43] Maggie Prescott, a fashion magazine editor in Funny Face (1957) is loosely based on Diana Vreeland.

[44] In the 1966 film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, Miss Maxwell (Grayson Hall) portrays an extravagant American expatriate fashion magazine editor.

Julie Newmar, Vida Boheme (Patrick Swayze) gives a copy of Vreeland's autobiography to a thrift-store clerk and tells him to "commit sections to memory".

In October 1996, Mary Louise Wilson portrayed Vreeland in a one-woman play called Full Gallop, which she had written together with Mark Hampton.

[47] The play takes place the day after Vreeland's return to New York City from her 4-month escape to Paris after being fired from Vogue.

Full Gallop ran at the Hampstead Theatre, London during September 2008, with Diana Vreeland again played by Mary Louise Wilson.