Carmel Snow

Carmel Snow , nee White (born August 21, 1887 in Dalkey , † May 7, 1961 in New York City ), was an American fashion journalist of Irish descent and from 1934 to 1958 editor-in-chief of the American fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar . From the 1930s to the 1950s, she set the tone in the American fashion industry.

biography

Family and youth

Carmel White was one of six children of the businessman Peter White (1850-93) and his wife Anne, the daughter of a member of parliament. White was managing director of Irish Woolen Manufacturing and involved in organizing the Irish Village at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago , but died a few months before it opened. Anne White decided to continue her late husband's work. After the exhibition, she stayed in Chicago, opened a shop selling Irish handicrafts, and in 1895 had Carmel and her sister, who had lived with their maternal grandparents, join them.

Carmel White attended boarding schools in the USA and a convent school in Brussels . Meanwhile, her mother had remarried and taken over an exclusive New York bespoke tailoring business that made Parisian haute couture for the American market. Under her leadership the company became very successful; it had around 250 employees. Carmel Snow was involved in the company's work and accompanied her mother on shopping trips to Paris. During the First World War she spent in Paris, where she worked for the Red Cross and was so capable that she was appointed head of the female Red Cross staff throughout the city.

Journalist career

After the war, Carmel White returned to New York, where she began writing about fashion for the New York Times . In 1921 she became assistant fashion editor at Vogue . On November 11, 1926, at the age of 39, Carmel White married the wealthy stockbroker George Palen Snow. In a short time she had three daughters and a son who died in childbirth. After each birth, she is said to have only taken a week off from work.

At Vogue , Carmel Snow developed her own perspective on fashion and coined principles such as "Buy only what you need, buy the best you can afford". True elegance is "good taste plus a portion of daring". However, she was increasingly dissatisfied with the magazine's old-fashioned, sophisticated approach, as well as with its then editor-in-chief Edna Woolman Chase . Eventually she moved to Harper's Bazaar magazine in 1932 , edited by William Randolph Hearst . Hearst and the publisher of Vogue , Condé Nast had actually agreed not to poach employees, and the disposal of Carmel Snow caused a upset. Nast never spoke to Carmel Snow again, despite the fact that she was the godmother of one of his children.

In 1935, Carmel Snow became the editor of Harper's Bazaar and had the magazine completely redesigned. Her goal was a magazine for "well-dressed women with well-dressed minds". Alexei Brodowitsch became the new art director , who gave the magazine a new layout , and the society lady Diana Vreeland became fashion editor. Louise Dahl-Wolfe and the Hungarian Martin Munkácsi became the magazine's photographers. Munkácsi shot the first action fashion picture in fashion history: a model wearing a swimsuit walking on a beach. The writer George Davis became a literary editor who featured numerous talents in the magazine, including Frank O'Connor , Truman Capote , Eudora Welty and Katherine Anne Porter , and a theater critic was Kenneth Tynan . The young Andy Warhol also worked for them in the 1950s. Snow allowed her staff full creative freedom, and the magazine's circulation tripled within a few years of her arrival.

Every year Snow traveled to Paris to examine the new collections. She was said to have an “unmistakable eye for proportions, for cut details - and for talent”. She popularized the designers Christian Dior and Cristóbal Balenciaga in the United States, and in later years she was always dressed in Balenciaga. It was she who coined the term “New Look” for Dior's 1947 collection. One of her discoveries in the 1950s was Irish fashion designer Sybil Connolly . Her dedication to working for Harper's meant that her children were mostly raised by nannies and that she and her husband, who was mainly gardening, increasingly led separate lives.

Carmel Snow was slim, had a throaty voice and kept her Irish accent, which is why she was also called "Irish pixie". At times she cut once-valued employees after they left the magazine, and she was considered ruthless. Many employees, on the other hand, appreciated their humor, warmth and risk-taking. Photographer Richard Avedon said she taught him everything he knew. She worked past the usual retirement age but became increasingly unpredictable, demanding, and drank too much. Since she also ate little, she could doze off during fashion shows. Her co-workers knew it was best to speak to her early in the morning when she was still sober. Eventually she was fired in 1957 for her alcohol abuse; She was succeeded by her niece Nancy White, whom Snow herself had considered unsuitable.

Her successor bowed to pressure from advertisers not to hold the presentation of Truman Capote's book Breakfast at Tiffany's as planned: the language was unsuitable and the title could offend the famous jewelers. The book became an instant hit and was shown in the windows of Tiffanys; Capote never wrote for Harper's Bazaar again . Within a few years, Brodovitch and Vreeland also left the magazine.

Retirement and death

Carmel Snow then bought Rossyvera House in Clew Bay , Ireland , where she lived with her sister. But she felt lonely there and returned to New York, where she died of a heart attack on May 7, 1961 at the age of 73. Her funeral drew so many mourners that it had to be moved from the women's chapel to the main part of St. Patrick's Cathedral . Carmel Snow was buried in her favorite Balenciaga costume in Cold Spring Harbor , Long Island, in the Snows family grave.

Awards and honors

In recognition of her help in revitalizing the French fashion industry in the post-war period, Carmel Snow was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1949 . The Italian government awarded her the Stella della Solidarietà in 1954 .

For International Women's Day 2020, the Irish Post An Post issued a stamp with the portrait of Carmel Snow as part of the Pioneering Irish women series .

literature

• Penelope Rowlands: A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life In Fashion, Art, and Letters . Pocket, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7434-8046-8 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} Bridget Hourican: Snow, Carmel. In: Dictionary of Irish Biography. Cambridge University Press, accessed December 9, 2020 . 
2. ^ Carmel Snow. Women's Museum of Ireland, July 14, 2017, accessed December 9, 2020 . 
3. ^ ^{A b c} Jeroen van Rooijen: Bazaar History: Carmel Snow. In: harpersbazaar.de. May 23, 2019, accessed December 10, 2020 . 
4. ^ Nathan Mannion: The forgotten Irishwoman who once ruled the New York fashion industry. In: irishtimes.com. February 18, 2020, accessed December 10, 2020 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Carmel Snow. In: fashiongtonpost.com. October 25, 2020, accessed December 10, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Warhol in Bazaar. In: harpersbazaar.com. November 6, 2014, accessed December 10, 2020 . 
7. ^ Before Anna Wintour, the fashion industry was ruled by a Dublin woman. In: irishcentral.com. September 13, 2020, accessed December 10, 2020 . 
8. ↑ A 'Dash' of Snow. In: irishecho.com. February 17, 2011, accessed December 10, 2020 . 
9. ^ Carmel White Snow (1887-1961). In: de.findagrave.com. August 15, 2018, accessed December 10, 2020 . 
10. ^ Sorcha Pollak: Pioneering Irish women feature in An Post's stamp set. In: irishtimes.com. March 5, 2020, accessed December 10, 2020 .