Carmel Snow

Carmel Snow (27 August 1887 – 1961) was the editor of the American edition of Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to 1958 and, after her retirement, the chairman of the magazine's editorial board.

She was born at Dalkey, Ireland, daughter of Peter White, the head of the Irish Wool Manufacturing and Export Company, and his wife, the former Annie Mayne. Carmel White moved with her family to the United States as a child, after her father's death, when her newly widowed mother was called upon to replace him as the head of the Irish pavilion of the Chicago World's Fair. Carmel had several siblings, including Victor White, a painter who decorated the Roof Ballroom of the St. Regis Hotel, and Christine (White) Holbrook, who became the editor in chief of Better Homes and Gardens. She also three additional brothers, Thomas Justin White, Peter Desmond White and James Mayne White.

Carmel White married a prominent society lawyer, George Palen Snow, in 1926 and had three daughters—Carmel, Mary Palen, and Brigid.

After working briefly at T.M. & J.M Fox, a famous dressmaking concern in Manhattan that was owned by her mother, Snow went to work as a fashion editor at American Vogue in 1921 and joined Harper's Bazaar 11 years later. She famously described her goal at the latter publication as creating a magazine for "well-dressed women with well-dressed minds". Her influence at both magazines went far beyond fashion reportage: she brought cutting-edge art, fiction, photography, and reporting into the American home.

Snow was particularly gifted at discovering new talent, as well as fostering new avenues of exploration among previously-established artists. In the 1920s, she worked closely with Edward Steichen, already a world-famous photographer, helping him to apply his talents to fashion photography, which he did to great effect, well into the 1930s.

In 1933 she hired Martin Munkácsi, the great Hungarian photojournalist, to take his first fashion shots; she brought him and the socialite-model Lucile Brokaw to a windy, autumnal beach and, in the course of an afternoon, Munkácsi created history by coming up with the first fashion photographs shot outdoors and in motion—a revolutionary act.

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