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Polly Allen Mellen

American fashion journalist (1924–2024)

Summary

American fashion journalist (1924–2024)

Field	Value
name	Polly Mellen
birth_name	Harriette Allen
birth_date
birth_place	West Hartford, Connecticut, United States
death_date
death_place	Salisbury, Connecticut, United States
occupation	Wardrobe stylist, fashion magazine editor
alma_mater	Miss Porter's School
genre	Fashion, journalism
subject
notableworks
spouse
children	2
website

Harriette Allen "Polly" Mellen (June 18, 1924 – December 11 or 12, 2024) was an American stylist and fashion editor. For more than 60 years, she served as the fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. From 1991 to 1999, she was the creative director of Allure. Mellen formally retired from Condé Nast Publications in 1994 and remained a consultant on various projects.

Background

Harriette Allen was born on June 18, 1924, to a wealthy family in West Hartford, Connecticut, and attended Miss Porter's School. She always preferred to go by "Polly". She worked as a nurse's aide in World War II.

Career

Harriette Allen moved to New York in 1949.

Mellen was known for her enthusiastic support of certain young designers both in the personal and business aspects of their lives. "She’s never lost her enthusiasm, in a field where everyone seems so jaded," said Isaac Mizrahi. Geoffrey Beene called her "the industry's cheerleader", and Calvin Klein referred to her as "the quintessential fashion editor".

In 1999, she left Allure to work freelance.

Mellen appeared in a number of documentaries on the fashion industry including Unzipped and Catwalk (both 1995) and HBO's In Vogue: The Editor's Eye (2012).

Personal life and death

In 1952, she married businessman Louis Baker Bell; they had two children and divorced in 1960. She was married to publisher Henry Wigglesworth Mellen from 1965 until his death in 2014.

Mellen turned 100 on June 18, 2024, and died at a care facility in Salisbury, Connecticut later that year, variously reported as on December 11 or December 12.

Awards

1994: CFDA Lifetime Achievement award

References

Green, Penelope. (December 15, 2024). "Polly Mellen, Fashion’s Storied Cheerleader, Dies at 100". [[The New York Times]].
(December 13, 2024). "Polly Mellen, fashion editor who brought pizzazz to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar from the 1950s onwards". The Telegraph.
Feitelberg, Rosemary. (December 14, 2012). "Polly Mellen Behind the Scenes". WWD.
Dullea, Georgia. (February 6, 1994). "'I Said Sequined!'". The New York Times.
(September 26, 1999). "POLLY MELLEN, MOVING ON". Washington Post.
(June 17, 2024). "Happy 100th Birthday, Polly Mellen! Colleagues Share Favorite Memories of the Indomitable Fashion Editor". Vogue.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1924-births 2024-deaths 20th-century-american-journalists 20th-century-american-women 21st-century-american-women american-women-centenarians american-women-journalists fashion-editors journalists-from-connecticut miss-porter's-school-alumni people-from-west-hartford,-connecticut world-war-ii-nurses

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