Polly Allen Mellen, the talented and effusive fashion editor, has died. She was 100.
Mellen was like the proverbial “kick in Champagne.” Opinionated, alert, and wry, she maintained old-school mannerisms of speech and gesture throughout her career, prompting Richard Avedon to quip: “From Vreeland’s rib came Polly Mellen.” The bob-haired editor’s hunger for the new was legendary, as was her enthusiasm, which was often expressed at fashion shows by overhead claps or tears. Some designers were known to ask if Mellen had cried during their presentations, considering it a complimentary mark of success.
Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1924, Mellen (née Allen) was educated at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington (Jacqueline Bouvier would later attend the school), where she cut a swath. “I’d wear my sweaters backward or tie my shoes with red laces. Looking like everybody else bored me. I should have paid more attention to my studies. Instead of college, I went to the College Shop at Lord Taylor,” Mellen later told The New York Times. Her transition from school to retail was not direct, however.
After graduating from Miss Porter’s during the Second World War, Mellen first worked as a nurse’s aide in Virginia, after which she joined her older sister in New York, segueing from retail (Lord Taylor to Saks Fifth Avenue) to publishing. While she was at Mademoiselle, Sally Kirkland, a respected editor, secured Mellen an interview at Harper’s Bazaar. There, in 1950, she was taken under the wing of Vreeland. She also encountered Richard Avedon, with whom she would work almost symbiotically for decades. Mellen has said that the photographer initially did not want to work with her, believing she was too loud. Vreeland insisted he do so and on their first shoot, Mellen kept quiet as a mouse. A kinship was formed.
Her stint at Harper’s Bazaar would be short-lived. In 1952 she married “a Princeton man” and moved to Philadelphia where she had two children. Divorced eight years later, she returned to the fashion fold. In 1965 she married Henry Wigglesworth Mellen and in 1967 she followed Vreeland to Vogue, where she started off with a bang. “One Saturday morning, I had just come back from the grocery store when my husband called out the window and said, ‘Mrs. Vreeland’s on the phone.’ I ran up the stairs, and she said… ‘How is your passport?’ I said, ‘My passport?’ ‘Yes, because we want you to do a story with Dick Avedon in Japan.’” Mellen set out with the photographer and the model Veruschka on a five-week odyssey loosely inspired by the Tale of the Genji; the result was a 26-page spread, “The Great Fur Caravan,” which is said to be the most expensive fashion editorial ever produced.
This is but one of many memorable Mellen-styled Vogue stories. Others, in chronological order, included the 1967 Twiggy cover with the painted flower eye, a symbol of Youthquake, with Avedon; “The Story of O,” with Helmut Newton for May 1975; the infamous bathing house shoot with Deborah Turbeville, also for May 1975; and the unforgettable image of Nastassja Kinski, naked, being kissed by a snake for October 1981. Anna Wintour, global editorial director of Vogue and chief content officer of Condé Nast, said, “Polly was a mercurial grand dame with boundless energy and a deep love for her work and for the creative process. She was an adored figure at Vogue and a huge part of our history. Working with giants like Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Helmut Newton, she was fearless on set: Nothing mattered more than the image, which might create beauty, or push boundaries, or do both at the same time.”
Despite having had a “very, very WASP” upbringing, Mellen did not belong to the stiff-upper-lip school of decorum. A 1999 New York Times profile was titled, “Oh, my. Nobody hyperventilates over fashion like Polly Mellen!”
A style icon in her own right, Mellen appeared in ads for Michael Kors and the Gap in 1991 and 2002, respectively. In between, she had a memorable role in the 1995 Douglas Keeve fashion documentary, Unzipped. Mellen also appeared in The Editor’s Eye in 2012. By then she had long left Vogue. Named creative director of Allure in 1992, she stepped away from that role in 1999 and retired in 2001. On the occasion of her 100 birthday earlier this year, Steven Klein, a close collaborator, said: “Polly was one of the most visionary fashion editors of our time. My dream was always to work with her. I remember writing her letters in high school dreaming of the day that I could. That came true. Polly pushed boundaries and had no limitations, creating some of the great photographs of our time. Her endless energy and ability to pivot in any direction at any time made her a true co-creator. No has ever topped her strong desire and commitment to fashion.”
When Mellen received a lifetime achievement award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1994, she was still going strong; in 1996 she teamed up with Avedon and co-stylist Doon Arbus to produce an epic shoot for The New Yorker, featuring Nadja Auermann and a skeleton, “In Memory of the Late Mr. Mrs. Comfort.” Mellen herself was never content with the status quo, and she pushed the boundaries of fashion in exciting new directions, leaving behind footprints that are still being followed today.
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