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