A tribute for the indomitable trend editor Polly Mellen, who died Dec. 12, is being deliberate for this summer season in Kent, Conn.
Mellen, the longtime sittings and trend editor at Vogue, handed away at age 100 on the assisted residing facility Noble Horizons in Salisbury, Conn. She is being laid to relaxation in Kent beside her second husband Henry Wigglesworth Mellen, in accordance with Mellen’s daughter Leslie Bell.
Along with Bell, Mellen is survived by her son Louis Baker Bell Jr., and two stepchildren, Lucinda Mellen and Henry Mellen. Polly Mellen and her first husband Louis Baker Bell divorced in 1960 after an eight-year union. 5 years later she married Henry Mellen.
Direct and energetic, the previous Vogue editor left her mark working with famed photographers like Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Helmut Newton. Her first shoot at Vogue was a five-week journey to Asia with Avedon (who described her as essentially the most artistic sittings editor that he had ever labored with). The project was mentioned to be the most costly trend shoot ever. The ultimate edit included pictures of Veruschka head-to-toe in white fur strolling by way of the snowy mountains of Hokkaido. One other shot featured the mannequin topless within the lotus place as a Japanese fortune teller appears to be like down at her erotically. “There’s a phrase that comes with being a robust editor. That phrase is accountability,” Mellen mentioned in 2002.
Polly Mellen, Ara Gallant and Veruschka in Tōjinbō Japan in 1966.
Gideon Lewin/Courtesy Photograph
Her wanderlust for trend and new places by no means waned. In truth, Mellen’s husband Henry as soon as informed her, “5 journeys a 12 months, or I’m buying elsewhere,” Leslie Bell recalled Monday with amusing. “He mentioned that as a result of she in all probability would have been on journeys many of the 12 months, touring consistently. That’s why she by no means needed to be editor in chief.”
By her personal account, Mellen informed WWD in 1999, “What’s exhausting is that you just maintain your eyes open and there could be no laziness. It’s not a matter of who you might be or what you might be. It’s not a matter of seniority — it’s a matter of efficiency.“
Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Polly Mellen and Christy Turlington, 1989.
Ron Galella
A troubadour within the discipline of trend, Mellen proved herself again and again within the trenches and higher echelons along with her expressive statements. Fittingly, she had labored as a nurse’s aide in a troopers’ hospital throughout World Battle II. After an early put up at Lord & Taylor, Mellen went on to depart her mark at Harper’s Bazaar, American Vogue and Attract. Her steely work ethic was of a first-to-arrive and last-to-leave ethos. After an early job at Harper’s Bazaar underneath Diana Vreeland, Mellen had a 28-year run at Vogue earlier than transferring on to Attract.
Attract’s founding editor in chief Linda Wells, who’s now editor of Air Mail’s magnificence platform “Look,” mentioned Mellen had been “itching for a brand new journey,” when she employed her from Vogue. “Attract was nowhere when she arrived. I used to be sitting in row G on the reveals. Polly swept in — she at all times swept in — and put us on the map and within the entrance row. ‘Basta,’ as she would say,” Wells mentioned.
Kate Moss fashions swimwear, whereas Polly Mellen takes notes at a Calvin Klein resort assortment present.
Fairchild Archive/Penske Media
Mellen’s trend sense could also be carried on through Bell’s daughter, who’s learning trend design on the Savannah Faculty of Artwork & Design. Having taken a 12 months off, due partially to her grandmother’s most cancers prognosis final summer season, the undergrad has been working for Costco — a choice that hints at Mellen’s no-nonsense pragmatism.