Diana Vreeland and colour

Watch the above clip (ignore the fuzzy audio) and you'll see that Diana Vreeland, former editor of American Vogue and contributor to Harpers Bazaar, had a amazing knack for description - the kind of verbal dexterity that I wish I had just so I could walk around the town talking to myself and being utterly confident that every word I say is utterly engrossing.

I've been reading her autobiography, D.V, and it's full of passages and asides that are precise in their description and beyond camp.

Diana talking about post-Nijinsky Parisiennes on the Bois de Boulogne:

"The colours! Before then, red had never been red and violet had never been violet. They were always slightly... grayed. But these women's clothes in the Bois were of colours as sharp as a knife: red red, violent violet, orange - when I say "orange", I mean red orange, not yellow orange - jade green and cobalt blue. And the fabrics - the silks, the satins and the brocades, embroidered with seed pearls and braid, shot with silver and gold and trimmed with fur and lace - were of an Oriental splendeur. There's never been such luxury since. These women looked rich."