Edith Raymond Locke

Austrian-American journalist and television producer (1921–2020)

Edie Locke (3 August 1921 - 23 August 2020) was an Austrian-American magazine editor and television producer and presenter. She was editor-in-chief of Mademoiselle from 1971 through 1979.

Early life

Edith Rosenberg Laub was born in Vienna on 3 August 1921 to Dora Hochburg Laub and Herman Laub, who was a department store buyer.^[1] She had one younger brother who died as an infant.^[1] In 1938, when Hitler invaded Vienna, she and other Jewish students were expelled from her school and her father was fired.^[1]^[2] Locke was in 1939 able to obtain a US visa and fled, first by train to Cherbourg, then on the Aquitania to New York; her parents were unable to obtain U.S. visas and fled to England.^[1]^[2] Locke lived in Brooklyn, where the family had relatives who took her in, worked in a toothpaste factory, and took courses at Brooklyn College, including English lessons, as she had immigrated speaking no English.^[1]^[2]

Publishing and fashion career

Locke got a job as a secretary at Harper's Bazaar, a monthly women's magazine.^[1] She became an assistant editor at Junior Bazaar.^[1] She wrote a monthly newsletter about fashion for an advertising agency, which was read by Mademoiselle's editor-in-chief Betsey Blackwell, who hired Locke in the early 1950s as an associate fashion editor.^[1]^[3] In 1971 Blackwell retired and Locke became the magazine's editor-in-chief.^[1]^[3] She was fired in 1979 by Alexander Liberman, then editorial director of Conde Nast, because he wanted a "lighter and sexier" magazine, similar to competitor Cosmopolitan, than the issues-heavy version Locke was producing.^[1]^[2] During her time at Mademoiselle she worked with and mentored multiple fashion designers.^[1] Proteges she mentored when they were launching their careers included Betsey Johnson, Donna Karan, and Ralph Lauren.^[1]^[2]^[4]

Locke hosted and produced You! Magazine for USA Network starting in 1981 and later a regular fashion segment for Attitudes, a daily lifestyle show on Lifetime.^[1]^[2]

Legacy

The Christian Science Monitor in 1986 said she had "helped shape the way a whole generation looked and imagined themselves."^[5] In 2016 the Courtauld Institute of Art included her in Documenting Fashion, a series of oral history interviews about the fashion industry.^[1]^[6]

Personal life

Locke met Ralph Locke in the early 1960s on a trip to St. Croix, where he was the manager of the Buccaneer Hotel, and they married in 1963.^[2] The couple had a daughter and grandchildren.^[1] From 1994, she lived in Los Angeles.^[1] She died on 23 August 2020, at her home in Thousand Oaks.^[1]^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q Green, Penelope (22 September 2020). "Edith Raymond Locke, Mademoiselle Editor in the 1970s, Dies at 99". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Hagerty, James R. (2 October 2020). "Edie Locke, Refugee From Nazis, Edited Mademoiselle Magazine". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
^ ^a ^b Taylor, Angela (4 April 1971). "At Mademoiselle, Changing of the Guard (Published 1971)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
^ "Edith Raymond Locke obituary". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
^ "Fashion-watcher Edie Locke". Christian Science Monitor. 1986-09-10. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2020-12-05.
^ "Edie Locke Archives". Documenting Fashion. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
^ Feitelberg, Rosemary (3 September 2020). "Former Mademoiselle Editor Edith Raymond Locke Dies at 99". Women's Wear Daily. Archived from the original on 2020-09-04. Retrieved 5 December 2020.