Eugenia Sheppard
Eugenia Sheppard (July 24, 1900 – November 11, 1984) was an American fashion writer and newspaper columnist for some 80 newspapers (including the Columbus Dispatch, New York Post, The Boston Post, and most notably, the New York Herald Tribune.
Sheppard was credited with having "revolutionized fashion reporting with her reports in the NYC Herald Tribune (1940–56)". Her syndicated column, Inside Fashion, made her the most influential fashion arbiter of the 1950s and 1960s. Her fashion columns at the New York Herald Tribune carried Joe Eula's illustrations.[1]
Witticisms
- "It's all terribly cute, but like giving a girl candy when she craves steak." (on some designers' one-time predilection for buttons and bows)
- "Pretty sexy for a tall girl, but it may make a short one disappear altogether." (on a dress she was not crazy about)
- "Dessès has always been inspired by birds. I think it's time somebody came right out and told this nice guy to switch to biology or some other ology. Anything but birds." (On Jean Dessès' "dovetail look")
- "For the second time in history, women are in a dither about a young man, called Valentino. This time he is not a movie star, but a fashion designer from Rome." (In 1964 for the Boston Post about the designer Valentino)
Death
She died in 1984, aged 84, from cancer in New York City. She was survived by her son Sheppard Black, stepson Walter Millis, Jr., and stepdaughter Sarah Millis McCoy.[2] Andy Warhol succinctly memorialized her in his diary entry of Monday, November 12, 1984, writing, "Oh and the day had started out with Eugenia Sheppard dying of cancer. She invented fashion and gossip together."[3]
Legacy
The Eugenia Sheppard Award for journalism has been given annually since 1987 by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Some Eugenia Sheppard Awardees
References
- Time magazine obituary
- WWD, p. 148 (November 12, 1984): pp4(1)
- Hackett, Pat, ed. "The Andy Warhol Diaries", New York: Warner Brothers, 1989, p. 614