Why Don’t You?

I finally finished Amanda McKenzie Stuart’s wonderful biography, Empress of Fashion, A Life of Diana Vreeland.  I wanted to savor it and so I did and it took me three years but oh how I loved it.   All of it – the false-truths that Diana (and I simply can’t call her “Vreeland”) told about her past, the famous bon mots, her strange picadillos (ironing her dollar bills and tissues before putting them in her handbag), her avant-garde fashion sense, her demanding nature – I enjoyed every page.  She really was a woman created for the 20th century and so much about her seems to be a compilation of several strong and outspoken women I have known in my life.  Diana was strong, no…fierce.

I love that she always had an “ideal” – someone in her sphere whom she admired and then imitated.  Sometimes when we are unsure of ourselves, like Diana was very often was for a number of good reasons, focusing on someone that we want to be like can help gain more courage.  She exaggerated and romanticized qualities in vivacious friends and soon she would “catch” whatever it was that they had, whether it was confidence or a new way of wearing flowers on her dresses.   Later, Diana didn’t need idols because she became one.  I idolize her.  She was so very clever.

One of the fun things I enjoyed reading about was Diana’s “Why Don’t You?” columns.  These appeared in Harper’s Bazaar during the war years and they were fanciful little suggestions that for the  most part were utterly frivolous.  And everyone knew it.  Still, her farcical ideas gave her readership at the very least, a chuckle or two.  But I think her columns gave the world optimism at a time it was needed the most.  If someone could write this fantastic stuff, maybe there was hope even amidst the brokenness of wartime.

Many years ago I bought a book of Diana’s “Why Don’t You”? columns.  It was fun reading and for some reason, my young daughter took to it too and claimed it for her own.  Since then, whenever I come across a reprint of one of the columns, I clip it and send it to my daughter to tuck away in the book.  Often I find the reprints have lovely illustrations which highlight Diana’s silly suggestions so elegantly.  The “Why Don’t You’s” have not been forgotten and are very often revisited in today’s fashion magazines.

I think Diana was a most unique woman.  Reading her biography and seeing the documentary about her life that her grandson produced, I believe she was a woman who wanted the music to go on and on.  Later in life she was asked by an interviewer how long she thought she would live.  Her response:  “I once heard someone say, ‘I shall die very young’.  How young?  Oh I don’t know…maybe 70…may be 80…maybe 90.  But I shall be very young”.

In honor of finishing Stuart’s Empress of Fashion, I thought I would craft some of my own “Why Don’t You’s”.  Perhaps you have some of your own.

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Why don’t you keep warm wearing a long wool skirt at home on the weekend instead of yoga pants?

Why don’t you bake an apple this fall with cinnamon and nutmeg, instead of reaching for your ice cream bowl?

Why don’t you cover the right lapel of your jean jacket with 5 or 6 of your grandmother’s old sparkly paste brooches?

Why don’t you knit yourself a pair of red mittens to wear with your new winter coat instead of your black leather gloves?

Why don’t you fill a small basket with notecards and for one month send no emails just handwritten notes?

Why don’t you head to the local sporting goods store and buy some heavy duty wool winter socks to wear with clogs?

Why don’t you put a small battery-operated penny candle in your window to welcome you home once the clocks go back?

Why don’t you skip the wine and order a cheery Shirley Temple with crushed ice to have with your meal?

Why don’t you buy a bottle of a fine wine for small impromptu pizza parties on your kitchen counter?

Why don’t you buy a faux-fur collar to wear with all your cozy winter sweaters?

Why don’t you???

Special Note:  More Worthy Women will be highlighted soon…