Wordtrade.com on Art

As Women's and later Associate Editor of the Sunday Times from 1955 to 1968, Ernestine Carter had a front row seat as the 1960s fashion revolution unfolded. American by birth, she came from a particular group of well connected, artistic, educated and internationally travelled Americans that took naturally to shaping perceptions of style. She worked as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York during the 1930s, and, after marriage to an Englishman, spent the war) in London, an experience she shared with her photojournalist friend Lee Miller. From 1946 to 1949 she witnessed Dior's New Look' spread across the globe as Fashion Editor of Harper's Bazaar, but it was her move to the Sunday Times that allowed her to shape the tastes of a new generation of fashion readers in her `Mainly for Women' pages, alongside fashion writers Brigid and Moira Keenan, Sandy Baler and Meriel McCooey at the Sunday Times magazine.

On arrival she was far from impressed by the antiquated ways of the newspaper, describing it in her autobiography Tongue in Chic as 'like working in a gentleman's penal colony — the atmosphere was feudal: the journalists were vassals, Lord Kemsley the chairman our liege'. The world she entered had no conception of the drama about to unfold on the fashion scene, and the traditional fashion pages were largely unchanged from their pre-war format. The policy of the paper was to preserve continuity even though writers changed —the previous editor had the nom de plume 'Mary Dunbar'. Plans for a new style of woman's page were fraught with problems, not least as every decision had to go before art directors and ultimately Lord Kemsley for approval. Her plan was to break from the traditional 'diary page' and to expand literally to bigger and better things, using more newsprint and devising different themes each week.The pages would not be limited to fashion, but `concerned with design in every area which could be made relevant to women'.

Traditionally a drawing, or occasionally a handout photograph, would be placed centrally in a layout, tombstone style, and only advertisers with the paper could be mentioned. Her early efforts at change were regularly frustrated as, on a number of occasions, the names of stockists were deleted by the board of the paper, which of course made it virtually impossible for readers to know where to obtain the clothes. `My aim was to be free to establish a standard of quality not necessarily based on price, but on excellence of design, creative ability, and value'.

The early 1960s fashion landscape was still largely dominated by Paris and the couture houses, and Ernestine Carter's taste in illustration was perfectly suited to the time. She favoured photographers Richard Avedon, Norman Parkinson and Cecil Beaton for their ability to portray clothes and, as no photography was allowed at the couture shows, regularly used artists Bud Crosthwait, Joe Eula and Christian Bernais. As early as 1962, however, 'Mainly for Women' was beginning to sense change in the air, and began to feature clothes by younger designers such as John Bates at Jean Varon and Mary Quant for her Kings Road boutique, Bazaar.

Under the new regime fashion writers such as Brigid and Moira Keenan would introduce new designers whom they felt were making a mark to Ernestine Carter, and commission photographers to illustrate their clothes in a more informal and artistically innovative way. Through the revised format and expanded remit of `Mainly for Women', Ernestine Carter had proved herself to be moving with the times, and in 1963 she was one of the first to identify and promote the talents of British designers with the Sunday Times International Fashion Awards. Intended to recognise those who made the greatest contribution to fashion design that year, the additional goal was to help to establish London as a fashion capital. Three international juries were set up, meeting in Paris to cast their votes at the end of the collections. The politics of keeping designers old and new happy became a headache, so each year a fashion `Fashion Immortal' was also nominated, the first award going to Chanel.

Back in the office, Ernestine Carter could perhaps be described as a benevolent dictator, and both her personal assistant Caroline Colthurst and writer Brigid Keenan have vivid memories of the day when she suggested that all her staff should wear matching outfits with Peter Pan collars and velvet Alice bands. Brigid Keenan, on reporting that even Courrèges had shown skirts above the knee in a particular couture show, received a dismissive response from her editor: `She simply couldn't believe it, and insisted that I must be wrong'.

From her essentially traditionalist viewpoint, the new work of photographers such as David Bailey, Terence Donovan and John Cowan could jar, a problem she referred to in her autobiography: 'Inventive, imaginative and technically skilful, they created pages which are often beautiful, always eyecatching, but the clothes they were supposed to be showing rarely had a sporting chance:

Caroline Colthurst recalls: 'Mrs. Carter was a difficult woman to work for. She never struck me as having a great sense of humour, however she was unique in having an immense knowledge of fashion, and was always immaculately turned out. She would go to the hairdressers twice a week and was very keen on wearing pillbox hats - which suited her.'

'She sacked me after eleven months - I deserved this. I had been sent to get a white synthetic toga nightdress photographed by Terence Donovan. It had been sent from America, and as I left the office I whinged to the other girls that it would need ironing. At Donovan's office there was an antique iron, and I managed to burn a huge iron-shaped hole in the nightie. When I got back to the Sunday Times Mrs Carter was not there, having gone off to Italy. I funked owning up until it was too late - three weeks later she was "going through" the clothes cupboard and found the dreaded toga. The next day I was sacked. However, I was the only Fashion Assistant who was re-employed by her two years later.'

'Thursdays were her copy days. She would squirrel away a flask of vodka in her desk and her secretary would be asked to make her "a Bov, dear girl". She would then sneakily lace the Bovril with a Large dollop of vodka!'

She did, however, recognise that the fashion spotlight was rapidly turning to London, and that it would soon be the designers featured in her pages that dictated the Latest trends, recalling of the times, 'There was a feeling of jet propulsion, as innovation followed innovation:

Brigid Keenan was responsible for introducing a number of new names to the paper, being one of the first fashion writers to champion David Bailey.'We introduced a new attitude to the writing - when I first started, the column was called "Young Grown-ups" which gives you an idea of how the youth market was overlooked. I introduced people like Mary Quant and Jean Muir to Ernestine Carter, and after time she accepted that they were innovative designers. Seen in isolation in London she was a unique force, but at the couture shows in Paris she rejoined a select group of great, and very grand, American fashion writers.'

By Lending her authority to a growing group of young designers, Ernestine Carter enabled 'Mainly for Women' to continue into the second half of the 1960s with an avid readership. A number of writers ensured that all aspects of 'Swinging London' were covered, with commentary on fashion suited to a varied readership, often including menswear, accessories, even interior design. Like the traditional couture houses which survived the decade, such as Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell, she realised that fashion was beginning to polarise. Couture maintained a place in a society still stratified by tradition, but Mrs. Carter was quick to recognise that younger names looked set to make their mark permanent. 'l came into the world of fashion when the English ready-to-wear battened on Paris with clever adaptations or copies. When I left, the situation was reversed:

'Mainly for Women' merged newspaper and women's magazine for the first time, and consequently had the ability to propel careers to new heights. A mention by Mrs. Carter, or any of the writers, could change fortunes overnight. An uncredited reviewer of her autobiography commented in 1974: 'One of the reasons, of course, for her unique authority - whatever she praised in the Sunday Times was sold out by lunchtime on Monday - was that her faithful readers knew that she could spot the winners, whether in Rome, California or the King's Road'.

Her lasting legacy includes the hundreds of photographic prints and original fashion drawings commissioned by her and her writers which, on retiring from the paper in the early 1970s, she felt deserved a permanent home. 'In desperation I turned to Doris Langley Moore, founder of the Museum of Costume in Bath [now the Fashion Museum]. The archive, not only a chapter of fashion from 1959-1972 - hats, hair styles, shoes, jewellery etc, as well as clothes - but also a history of dramatic fashion photography and illustration, is now, with Lord Thomson's permission, in the Research Centre of the Museum:

An ongoing process of cataloguing, scanning and conservation of the archive at the Fashion Museum will ensure that Ernestine Carter's contribution to fashion writing will be widely available to journalists, fashion students and members of the public in the future - just as she intended.