fashion history
- Eleni Epstein, fashion history, fashion journalism, Ford Library, journalism history, Washington Star
Inauguration & Fashion Journalism
There has been heavy media coverage of what First Lady Michelle Obama might wear to the Inauguration tomorrow. Here is an example from ABC News. The First Lady’s fashion sense would have been appreciated by fashion journalist Eleni Epstein who covered my first ladies – including Jackie Kennedy. Eleni Epstein was the longtime fashion editor at the Washington Star. Her papers are in the National Women & Media Collection. Here is a link to a calender from the Ford Library which shows the First Lady meeting privately with Eleni Epstein. My article about Epstein took more than six years to research and write. It will come out next year in…
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More About Fashion Editor Marji Kunz
I received some great material about Detroit fashion journalist Marji Kunz. Here is an earlier post about Marji. The letter above is from Marji to Paul Myhre, director of the Penney-Missouri Awards – the top recognition for the women’s pages. It can be found in the papers of the Penney-Missouri Awards at the State Historical Society of Missouri. Marji won two Penney-Missouri Awards for her reporting on fashion.
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Wearing Pants: Fashion & Feminism
The New York Times published a story this week about women wearing pants as a protest to women’s roles in the Mormon Church. According to the article: “Wear Pants to Church,” an event on Sunday, was meant to draw attention to the role of women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, using attire as a symbolic first salvo in a larger struggle over gender inequalities. Though the Mormon Church has no official policy against women wearing pants to church, many say they feel peer pressure to wear a dress, particularly in the Western United States, organizers said.” This is not a new idea. Fort Lauderdale women’s page…
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Day Five of Favorite Fashion Editors: Marji Kunz
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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Day Four of Favorite Fashion Editors: Marian Christy
One of the most significant fashion reporters of the 1960s and early 1970s was Marian Christy. She started at the Boston Globe in April 1965 and her work was later picked up by the syndicate U.P.I. Her columns then ran in 104 different newspapers. She won Penney-Missouri Awards in 1966, 1968 and 1970. That is Christy sitting in the chair below at a Penney-Missouri Award ceremony. Bobbi McCallum is the Seattle women’s page journalist standing in the lace pantsuit. Christy took a progressive, sociological approach to fashion – rather than writing for advertisers. For example, she described the see-through blouse from a late-1960s Saint Laurent fashion show: “Haute couture is…
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Fashion Writers Marian Christy & Bobbi McCallum
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Day Three of Favorite Newspaper Fashion Editors: Eleni Epstein
Eleni Epstein was the fashion editor of the Washington Star for more than three decades. She was a native of Washington, D.C. who attended George Washington University and Columbia University. During World War II she began her journalism career as a copy assistant at the Washington Star and was promoted to the position of fashion editor at age 21. Her internationally syndicated articles covered the fashion markets of Milan, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo and London. Her position as fashion editor lasted more than 35 years until 1981 when the Star ceased publication. She received many awards for her interpretive writing and her contributions to the fashion industry. In 1960 she…
