Kate Betts
Katherine Hadley Betts (born March 8, 1964)
She began her career at
Life and career
1980s
Betts was born and raised in
She has recalled this period of her career as essential to her development as a fashion journalist.
I was a reporter. I was reporting on the lingerie business and perfume launches — what everybody at Women's Wear Daily has to start off with. That's where you learn about the industry; that's the baptism by fire. You learn about fabrics, you have to cover Premiere Vision, which is the big fabric fair in Paris, and you have to figure out who the perfume nose is at Christian Dior and the difference between the fragrances. You have to learn a lot about the people and processes of each industry within the fashion industry. And that's the best way to learn about fashion.[1]
She wrote stories about the
1990s
After two years, she became the bureau chief. The following year, 1991, she left Fairchild and Paris for New York and
This earned her the favor of the magazine's editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour. She was the only person willing to publicly disagree with "Nuclear Wintour" around the offices, further impressing her boss. In time, Betts came to be seen as the likely successor to Wintour whenever she decided to step down from one of fashion's most prestigious posts.[5]
In the late 1990s, disagreements between the two over the magazine's direction became more entrenched. Betts felt the magazine was losing its focus on fashion, while Wintour thought the
Eventually, her discontent with the magazine's direction became known outside it, and Condé Nast offered her the editorship of
After first denying to Wintour reports that she had accepted the position, she came in shortly after starting
2000s
Harper's Bazaar editorship
Her transition, as the youngest editor ever at America's oldest fashion magazine, was rough.
Her goal was to remake the magazine along the lines she would have developed Vogue. "I always wanted a magazine that's avant-garde and up-to-the-minute," she said. "The whole point of fashion is to showcase what's happening and what's new". The fashion world was eager to see the result but saw pitfalls. ""I think it's exciting to have new blood in a magazine which hasn't been doing well for a very long time", said Oscar de la Renta. Others warned that "the danger in turning a high-end fashion magazine into this young, pop-culture thing is that she'll come up with Jane. And there already is a Jane. Her challenge is to make Harper's young and hip without making it cheap."[4]
Early
It soon became apparent that it wasn't working out. Not quite two years later, in May 2001, she was replaced by Glenda Bailey of Marie Claire.[7] Looking back on her tenure, one of her former deputies said "She was a control freak, and she wasn't good with people. It makes me think that there was truth to [the notion] that she was too young".[6]
When asked about it later, Betts was philosophical about the experience:
It was one of those things where it was a job you can't say no to, even though I was nine months pregnant. ... It's weird, all the criticism and all the tough calls at Bazaar, and getting fired ultimately, those were all hard things to experience, but with hindsight, which is always 20/20, they were great experiences. I don't regret any of it at all. It was an amazing opportunity to learn how to edit a magazine in two years, and get it over with. There are a lot of lessons there, but the thing I always come back to is, if you're doing something you really believe in, you never regret anything you do.[1]
After Bazaar
After Bazaar, Betts began doing freelance work for
Her review, it was noted, "alternates between sniping at the author and sucking up to former Vogue cronies."
In 2004, she returned to the editorial ranks when
References
- ^ mediabistro.com. Jupitermedia. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f Betts, Kate. "Kate Betts". katebetts.com. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
- ^ Betts, Katherine Hadley (1986). "Beauty in the Streets: The Impact of Student-Worker Action on French Political Consciousness in the Events of May, 1968".
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(help) - ^ K-III Communications. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
- ^ K-III Communications. Retrieved August 14, 2009.
- ^ New York Observer. Archived from the originalon August 27, 2008. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
- ^ "Betts gets the boot from Harper's Bazaar". Media Life. June 1, 2001. Archived from the original on June 5, 2010. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
- ^ Betts, Kate (April 13, 2003). "Anna Dearest". The New York Times. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
- ^ Goldblatt, Mark (June 10, 2003). "The Devil & The Gray Lady". National Review Online. Archived from the original on January 29, 2013. Retrieved June 12, 2003.
- Gawker.com. Gawker Media. April 13, 2003. Archived from the originalon July 4, 2009. Retrieved June 12, 2010.
- ^ Spiers, Elizabeth (April 24, 2003). "When Personal Assistants Attack". Salon.com. Salon Media Group. Archived from the original on October 25, 2009. Retrieved June 12, 2003.
- Independent News and Media. November 6, 2005. Retrieved June 12, 2010.
- ^ Friedman, Jon (April 19, 2004). "Time makes a fashionable bet on Betts". MarketWatch. Dow Jones. Retrieved June 12, 2010.
- News Corporation. Retrieved June 12, 2010.