Thursday, October 05, 2006

A Dash of Daring

Before the dawn of the celebrity magazine editors such as Anna Wintour and Carine Roitfeld, there was Carmel Snow. She laid the foundation for what is now considered the framework of women's magazines. She was ahead of her time, but unfortunately, time was not good to her. Read "A Dash of Daring" and see how she navigated her career in fashion, runway after runway, until her "season" ended and she unceremoniously, in fashion parlance, found herself "out".

Here's a review from Simonsays.com:

"Carmel Snow, who changed the course of our culture by launching the careers of some of today's greatest figures in fashion and the arts, was one of the most extraordinary women of the twentieth century. As editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to 1958 she championed the concept of "a well-dressed magazine for the well-dressed mind," bringing cutting-edge art, fiction, photography, and reportage into the American home.

Now comes A Dash of Daring, a first and definitive biography of this larger-than-life figure in publishing, art, and letters. Veteran magazine journalist Penelope Rowlands describes the remarkable places Snow frequented and the people whose lives she transformed, among them Richard Avedon, Diana Vreeland, Geoffrey Beene, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cristobal Balenciaga, Lauren Bacall, and Truman Capote."

Another glamorous yet tragic character in the fashion scene, why is it generally this way? But beyond the melodrama that was her life is also a peek into the world of magazine publishing. Quite an educational read! This might as well be a guide to running a fashion magazine...

2 comments:

stylePOD said...

I read an interesting autobiography by Bettina Ballard, a former Vogue Fash Editor, where she described in detail the force that was Ms. Carmel Snow. Her eye for spotting new talent was amazing! I am sure this book is a wonderful read.

cd_mfo said...

Super! Glad I had the book during the blackout! Btw, noticed something similar between Snow and Wintour - apart from their "cold" names and reputation, they're both calculating, cunning and extremely gifted editrixes. Does one have to be an Ice Queen to get to their kind of stature? Hmmm...

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