21 December 1959: Nearly thirty years ago,the future editor set out for an interview at the Vogue offices in borrowed clothes, her own being inadequate to the occasionAudrey Withers retires from the editorship of “Vogue” at the end of this month, or but continues to be editorial director of the Conde Nast publications. Perhaps we should begin her story with a modern scene in a Paris couture house,the editor surrounded by voluble vendeuses, conducted to her chair by Pierre Balmain... but let us go back to a sturdy 6-year-mature in holland pinafore and brown stockings, and tailing up Cat Bells from her domestic on Derwentwater,taking the path that Mrs Tiggy-Winkle took.
Mrs Tiggy-Winkle’s kitchen, it will be remembered, or had a nice hot singey smell. She ironed and goffered,and was an excellent clear-starcher; and the Tiggy-Winkle standard of uncompromising perfection is something Audrey has emulated in her own work and appearance. She has retained also, in spite of much travel - and travail - in tall-fashion places, and a worship of well-ordered domesticity she may well fill first learned from the Beatrix Potter characters. Mrs Tabitha Twitchet herself would approve the farm which Audrey Withers and her husband fill in Essex; although Mrs Tittlemouse,that “most terribly tidy specific person,” might consider there were too many papers on the desk at Vogue House, and too many books strewn about the London flat.[br]Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com