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Chicago Fashion Editor Peg Zwecker
Embed from Getty Images Peg Zwecker was a longtime fashion editor at the Chicago Daily News and then the Chicago Sun Times. She hired Lois Wille as her assistant – Wille went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes. Zwecker is known for discovering Halston. She was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame.
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Detroit Fashion Editor Marji Kuntz
Another fashion editor who I am interested in learning more about is Marji Kunz of Detroit – she worked for both newspapers in the city. The Detroit Free Press includes her in an article about the newspaper’s history: “Marji Kunz — fashion writer who often surprised readers and made the fashion makeover popular — once attended a formal affair in an elegant nightgown to prove a point.” She is described this way by the API’s Carol Ann Riordan: “Marji Kunz, a fashion writer for The Detroit Free Press, inspired me when I was growing up. She didn’t cover her beat like every other fashion writer: getting swept away by clothing…
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Detroit Fashion Editor Yvonne Petrie
A fashion editor I discovered this summer was Yvonne Petrie of the Detroit News. She started at the newspaper in 1953 and began covering fashion the next year. A native of Indiana, she attended the University of Chicago and Indiana University. She won a Penney-Missouri Award for fashion reporting in 1964. She gave an interesting speech about fashion journalism when she went to Missouri to get her award. She regularly covered the New York City, California, Honolulu and European fashion shows.
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Milwaukee Fashion Editor Aileen Ryan
A favorite Milwaukee fashion journalist is the Milwaukee Journal’s Aileen Ryan – a three-time Penney-Missouri Award winner. Each day this week will feature a Milwaukee Journal women’s page journalist. During her first summer of work in 1921, Ryan attended a meeting to hear Milwaukee Journal Editor Marvin Creager say he was happy to have females on the staff because “women have cleaned up newspaper offices.” Ryan later recalled the statement made her feel as though she had been hired to use a mop. Ryan started under the editorship of women’s page journalist Elizabeth B. Moffet. Moffett had been recruited from the Kansas City Star, where she had pioneered a new…
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Washington Star Fashion Editor Eleni Epstein
Another interesting fashion journalist is Washington Star fashion editor Eleni Epstein. She was one of the most noticeable Washington, D.C., voices in translating fashion news in the post-World War II era through 1981. Epstein found fashion to have a unique role in Washington society. After all, as she pointed out, it was her city’s unique social events that required the high couture clothing that she wrote about. “Washington women have always been interested in fashion,” she said. “Our city is one of achievers and doers.” It was a world that Epstein circulated within and would share with her readers as someone who could rarely afford many of the fashions she…
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Houston Fashion Editor Judy Lunn
As I work on my newspaper fashion journalism book, I will be posting regularly about fashion editors. The first editor is July Lunn. Lunn was the fashion editor of the Houston Post. Fashion was part of her family’s history. Her grandfather was a furrier. Her aunt was a lingerie designer who created a trousseau for Elizabeth Taylor when she married Eddie Fisher and a maternity gown for Lucille Ball. Lunn won her first writing award at age nine for a story on fire prevention. And while she had a knack for writing, it was fashion that caught her interest. She graduated a year early from Hunter High School in New…
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
