''Why Don't You . . .

tie black tulle bows on your wrists?
have a yellow satin bed entirely quilted in butterflies?
remember how delicious champagne cocktails are after tennis or golf? Indifferent champagne can be used for these.''

For more than half a century, Diana Vreeland, doyenne of American fashion, beguiled, awed, astonished, and was adored by almost anyone who created or wore clothes.

Irresistible and flamboyant, socialite Mrs. T. Reed Vreeland began her now legendary twenty-five-year tenure at Harper's Bazaar writing a column of audacious advice: extravagant ideas that helped redefine American women and twentieth-century fashion. Her commentary created a fashion frenzy when it began appearing in Harper's Bazaar in 1936. Her ideas were simultaneously stylish and outrageous, and have as much appeal today as they did decades ago.

Here for the first time, John Esten has compiled one hundred of Mrs. Vreeland's kaleidoscopic ''Why Don't You . . . ?'' suggestions, and paired them with the breathtaking works of such renowned photographers and artists as Munkacsi, Dahl-Wolfe, Hoyningen-Heune, and Bérard, which further capture the dazzling legacy of whimsy, elegance, and style of Mrs. Vreeland's Bazaar years.