cover image Violet Velvet Mittens with Everything: The Fabulous Life of Diana Vreeland

Violet Velvet Mittens with Everything: The Fabulous Life of Diana Vreeland

Deborah Blumenthal, illus. by Rachel Katstaller. Princeton Architectural Press, $18.95 (48p) ISBN 978-1-64896-063-5

The intimidatingly fabulous Diana Vreeland (1903–1989), 20th-century tastemaker and editor of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, breezily narrates this picture book tribute to her aesthetic achievements: “I turned fashion on its head, dreaming up stories of glamorous worlds.” Blumenthal’s Vreeland airily skims by biographical detail—the telling jumps from the figure’s youthful love of dance to becoming “the Empress of Fashion” in a single spread. Instead, the figure’s merrily madcap worldview dominates, building to a series of dazzling quotes from her legendary column, “Why Don’t You?” (“Have every room done up in every color green?”) Katstaller’s trendy, clean-lined illustrations decorously tidy Vreeland’s opulent world, taming the visionary wildness of her famous red room. Still, it’s a winsome, if partial, introduction to a style icon who chose to “never, ever [be] boring.” Ages 4–8. (Oct.)