Why Dont You?' wasn't totally absurd to me," Diana said later. "Of course, the columns had a certain absurdity that tickled people -- just to think that anyone would thin of writing anything so absurd. But it wasn't even writing. To me writing--Edith Wharton, Henry James...Proust, for God's sake...is a think of beauty and sustainment. 'Why Don't You?' was a think of fashion and fantasy, on the wing...It wasn't writing, it was just ideas. It was me, insistent on people using their imaginations, insisting on a certain idea of luxury.

In this instance, however, the answer was quite straightforward: "Men want women beautiful, romantic... birds of paradise instead of hurrying brown hens," said Bazaar in October 1945. As families were reestablished, there was a move toward a celebratory fashion of fecundity, with closer-fitting waists and rounder hips.