The Journalism of Style: How New York’s Fashion Editors Set The Stage For Fashion Reporting
By Kimberly Wilmot Voss
New York City’s deep fashion history created the foundation for the American fashion industry, though often missing from that story is the influence of newspaper fashion editors. Within the first few decades of the 20th century, these editors began to forge important shifts on how the fashion industry was reported on and who got to do that very reporting. For example, in the 1930s, when only fashion magazine reporters and store buyers were permitted in fashion shows, Milwaukee Journal fashion editor Aileen Ryan elbowed her way into New York City shows by simply ignoring the rule. She knocked on more than ten showroom doors a day and managed to access several of them. She recalled that no one had heard of the Milwaukee newspaper she wrote for, but she eventually prevailed and sent back her stories. “The New Yorkers began to understand the value of what I was doing,” Ryan explained. She continued to fight for more access each year, eventually gaining entry for her photographer, too. As a result, other newspapers had to buy their fashion photographs from the Milwaukee Journal.
Despite the importance of clothing as an industry and in a person’s individual life, scholarship on newspaper fashion reporting is lacking. Even the more recent research on women in journalism has ignored the traditional women’s section reporting, focusing more on women whose work reached the front pages of newspapers.[1] Yet, areas like fashion journalism were where women were making their mark for decades. Immediately following World War II, fashion editors held dominant positions within the world of journalism. They chronicled the fashions worn in professional and personal worlds and in doing so served as social critics. They also promoted the work of American designers at a moment in which designers became household names.
Virginia Pope and The New York Times
This is an example of a woman modeled at the spring fashion show of the National Retail Garment Association in the Hotel Commodore, New York City, 1921. Fashion shows were a large part of fashion journalism. Citation
During the 1940s and 1950s, the most prominent newspapers for fashion coverage within the city’s press were The New York Times and The New York Herald Tribune. Virginia Pope — who was The New York Times fashion editor from 1933 to 1955 — explained: “Then came the war, and the Paris blackout. There were no reporters from Paris. So we did New York designer stories, and New York fashion stories.”[2] “Fashions of the Times,” an annual fashion show sponsored by the newspaper, was actually initiated by Pope in the midst of the war. She presented a series of small fashion shows for women’s clubs in the New York City with help from the promotion and circulation departments. The purpose was to highlight the New York textile industry in hopes of raising the stature of American clothing. According to a book about the Times: “When the war cut off Paris fashions, the visitation became acute and Miss Pope wisely figured a Times-sponsored fashion show might help anchor the industry – and help bring in more national advertising.”[3] Pope also encouraged the young fashion designers who were just emerging during the war. Fashion designer Pauline Trigere said of Pope: “I think she invented the reporting of fashion. Nobody thought of describing a dress as a news event before she did.” Designer Geoffrey Beene said of Pope: “She was a very knowledgeable woman. When I first began to work in New York as designer, I was completely in awe of her. She was one of the great ladies of fashion.”[4]
Years after taking over the fashion section of the Times, Pope recalled: “I was trying to promote the American designer. We did write about French designers, and mention their names, but we ignored the Americans.”[5] Yet, Pope worked to remedy this. Initally, the names of stores were not included in stories. This was in an attempt to separate the editorial side of the newspaper from the advertising office.[6] She went to her bosses and requested a query box so that readers could write in and get information about the designers and manufacturers featured in her section. In working to convince her boss, she recalled that the store Saks Fifth Avenue had a large fashion lunch at the Plaza Hotel. On the tables were a list of clothing, as well as Sak’s name. In other words, all that she wrote about was public information. She went back to the Times and said: “Look, this is public. If I wrote about it, I wrote Sak’s name, and I write the clothes. Now, why can’t I do that with everything else?” The newspaper accepted her logic and changed the policy about including store names, thereby making fashion reporting more transparent.[7]
Eugenia Sheppard and The Herald Tribune
Likely the most significant newspaper fashion journalist of the 1960s was Eugenia Sheppard. In 1956, she began her popular fashion column “Inside Fashion” at The Herald Tribune. Initially, it ran twice a week, eventually becoming a daily column and a “must read” in the fashion community. Well-known for her wit and way with words, here is her description of 1957 European fashion shows, buttons, and bows: “It’s all terribly cute, but like giving a girl candy when she craves steak.” Of Lanvin-Castillo's new extra-short skirt length: “Pretty sexy for a tall girl, but it may make a short one disappear altogether.” Of Jean Dessès’ “dovetail look”: “Dresses have always been inspired by birds. I think it's time somebody came right out and told this nice guy to switch to biology or some other ology. Anything but birds.” According to The New York Times, Sheppard “became known for her breezy writing style, a personalized approach to fashion and her ability to spot trends even before the trend-setters realized they were setting them.”[8]
This cocktail dress was made with handmade pink floral decorations designed by Ann Lowe, 1960. Lowe would go on to create the wedding dress for the future First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Citation
Sheppard’s work was both analytical and descriptive. She could also be snarky — especially as her fame increased. Writing on Sheppard’s journalism, one historian argues that “With the introduction in 1956 of her thrice-weekly column, ‘Inside Fashion,’ Sheppard revolutionized the journalism of style by adjusting its focus from inanimate fabric to the people who designed and wore it. ... By deciding whom and what to write about she could create a whole new pattern of social commentary.”[9] Geraldine Stutz, president of elite department store Henri Bendel, declared that “‘Inside Fashion’ was an enormous revelation. Up until then, fashion reportage was description of clothes. Eugenia was fascinated by fashion and began to talk about the people who made the clothes and the people who wore the clothes. She personalized fashion. It was the beginning of modern fashion reportage.”[10] Fashion journalism was becoming more democratic in its coverage. It was no longer only high-end designers and elite department stores that determined what was acceptable fashion. Fashion editors — at newspapers and magazines — could sway public opinion about clothing trends.
Sheppard, with her sharp wit and biting analysis, was the perfect person to cover fashion at this changing time. Designer Mollie Parnis said of the journalist: “She was the first one to treat designers like celebrities. She made the average woman feel toward a designer like an audience to an actor.”[11] Thus, Sheppard’s means was a powerful approach. In an interview with Women’s Wear Daily, Sheppard explained, “I tend to think of people as characters in novels. I was always more interested in the people who were designing the clothes and wearing them than the clothes themselves.”[12] Pulitzer-Prize winning fashion writer Robin Givhan wrote that Sheppard “nursed modern fashion reportage through its infancy in the 1950s and 1960s with her emphasis on personalities and trends.”[13] She added personality to fashion journalism. The clothing was equally important as the person who wore it. Indeed, early on in her career Sheppard learned that rich people “no longer craved privacy, and loved nothing better than to have their taste validated by attention in the public prints.”[14] This discovery led to a different, more nuanced kind of society coverage. Sheppard was willing to cover the wealthy but she was not gentle in her writing. Both designers and the people who wore their clothes were likely to be skewered if Sheppard did not approve. As The New York Times wrote: “Miss Sheppard is an aggressive reporter who works in the moribund tradition of The Front Page. Nothing escapes her narrowed blue eyes.”[15]
Conclusion
Qualifications for fashion journalists varied, typically based on the publication. Pope noted that a fashion journalist should love fashion and have sense of style. The importance of this quality was as universal as their journalism skills. On their writing, she elaborated that “She should be able to write. Fashion copy is a tricky business. It takes a very special knack to keep it from getting monotonous. Yet it should never be too effervescent. Most important, it must be accurate.”[16] Pope raised the stature of fashion coverage by following the guidelines of hard news. She considered fashion shows as events that should be covered like any other event without outside influences. This was a change from how journalists had covered fashion in the past.
Few American newspaper fashion editors were more influential in the 1950s and 1960s than the Herald Tribune’s Eugenia Sheppard. She helped to define a new kind of American fashion society in the post-World War II years. Sheppard’s column was also syndicated in more than eighty newspapers across the country. During the height of her career, no designer started his or her fashion show until Sheppard took her front row seat, where a special spot was routinely reserved for her.[17] Ultimately, she became as significant as the designers she wrote about. Artist Andy Warhol wrote of her: “She invented fashion and gossip together.”[18] Her writing did have a distinctly gossipy tone, differed from previous fashion journalism coverage that was rather straight forward. It was the beginning of fashion and celebrity that would become popular later.
Dr. Kimberly Voss, a full professor at the University of Central Florida, has published several books about women in mass media history. Her 2014 book, The Food Section: Newspaper Women and the Culinary Community, documented the history of food journalism in newspapers during the post-World War II years. Her third book, Women Politicking Politely looked at the experiences of pioneering women’s editors. Her 2018 book Re-Evaluating Women’s Page Journalism in the Post-World War II Era told the stories of significant women’s page journalists who contributed to the women’s liberation movement. Her most recent book, Newspaper Fashion Editors in the 1950s and 60s: Women Writers of the Runway, examines newspaper fashion history in the 1940s through 1970s.
[1] Kathleen A. Cairns, Front Page Women Journalists, 1920-1950 (University of Nebraska Press, 2007)
[2] Virginia Pope’s oral history, New York Times, May 21, 1971, held at New York Public Library, 16.
[3] Meyer Burger, The Story of the New York Times, 1851-1951 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1951), 494.
[4] “Virginia Pope, 92, Fashion Editor of The Times 22 Years, Is Dead,” New York Times, January 17, 1978.
[5] Virginia Pope’s oral history, New York Times, May 21, 1971, held at New York Public Library, 13.
[6] Garrett D. Byrnes, ed., Fashion Handbook (New York: American Press Institute/Columbia University Press, 1951)
[7] Virginia Pope’s oral history, New York Times, May 21, 1971, held at New York Public Library, 15.
[8] Anne-Marie Schiro, “Eugenia Sheppard, Fashion Columnist, Dies,” New York Times, November 12. 1984.
[9] Kluger, The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune (New York: Knopf, 1986): 265.
[10] Anne-Marie Schiro, “Eugenia Sheppard, Fashion Columnist, Dies” New York Times, November 12, 1984.
[11] Nina Hyde, “High Fashion Columnist Eugenia Sheppard Dies,” Washington Post, November 13, 1984.
[12] Nina Hyde, “High Fashion Columnist Eugenia Sheppard Dies,” Washington Post, November 13, 1984.
[13] Robin Givhan, Battle of Versailles (New York: Flatiron Books, 2015), 162-163.
[14] Richard Kluger, The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 625.
[15] Marylin Bender, The Beautiful People (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1967), 79.
[16] Virginia Pope’s oral history, New York Times, May 21, 1971, held at New York Public Library, 64.
[17] Anne-Marie Schiro, “Eugenia Sheppard, Fashion Columnist, Dies” New York Times, November 12, 1984.
[18] Pat Hackett, ed., The Andy Warhol Diaries (New York: Warner Brothers, 1989), 614.