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Known for her daring and sometimes way over-the-top Why Don’t You fashion columns in Harper’s Bazaar, editor DIANA VREELAND also had rather audacious ideas about how people should decorate their homes. Here are a few Why Don’t You decorating gems along with some detail photos of Diana’s Park Avenue apartment.

Why Don’t You…

-cover a big cork bulletin board in bright pink felt, banded with bamboo, and pin with colored thumb-tacks all of your various enthusiasms as your life varies from week to week?

-do your closet shelves in immaculate white organdy, pleated with Lubin’s scented pink flannels wrapped around your things?

-paint every door in a completely white house the color of a different flower–and thereby give each room its name?

-if you have a shining parquet floor, have potted cineraria of every color of blue banked around the sofa at one end of each room?

-have a room done up in every color green? This will take months, years, to collect but it will be delightful–a mėlange of plants, green glass, green porcelains, and furniture covered in sad greens, gay greens, clear, faded, and poison greens?

Billy Baldwin created an oasis of fire and brimstone for Diana using a scarlet chintz covered in Persian flowers that he found in London. Billy covered the entire living room including the walls, furniture and curtains in the scarlet chintz creating the famous “garden in hell” effect.

The painted leather screen was an 18th century antique used to divide the living room.

Notice how the screen was positioned to divide the crowded space.

Diana kept her 1930’s desk of stackable cabinets decorated with drawings, photographs and postcards. The ceramic dogs on the desk are English Straffordshire.

Diana’s desk almost covered the entire living room wall.

Diana’s bookshelves reveal favored keepsakes and portraits of her by friends Cecil Beaton and Christian Bèrard.

In Diana’s bedroom, a fireplace mantle holds a collection of antique papier-mâché wig stands. The artwork is an English 19th century portrait of children.

Photos: Lizzie Himmel and Oberto Gili