Fanny Fern Fitzwater

Fanny Fern Fitzwater was a prominent fashion editor, illustrator and educator who shaped her own career path alongside a group of pioneering businesswomen during the mid-twentieth century. She was born in Penn Yan, New York, in 1886. Her father was a farmer turned professional landscaper who encouraged his three children's creative pursuits. Fitzwater attended Syracuse University for her undergraduate degree and moved to New York City to study at the Art Students League. Then she went to Paris for several years to study with French artists and fashion designers. 

Upon her return to the United States in 1926, she was hired as a fashion reporter by Helen Rogers Reid, president of the New York Herald Tribune. During the 1930s, she was at the center of artistic happenings, living part-time in Paris to report on French fashions for the New York paper. She attended shows year-round, illustrating designs for her regular review columns. As a syndicated columnist, her articles circulated in newspapers throughout the nation, building her reputation as a fashion authority. Fitzwater began teaching fashion illustration at Traphagen Fashion School in New York and at the University of Maryland during the late 1930s. 

After World War II ended, Fitzwater had been working for the Tribune for seventeen years and decided it was time for a change. She moved to Kansas City to teach fashion design and illustration at the Kansas City Art Institute. Fitzwater embraced the local fashion scene and her role as faculty, establishing an annual student fashion show that was attended by leaders in the garment industry. She developed the curriculum to include an intensive study of costume history, commercial design and creative expression. Outside the Art Institute, Fitzwater helped found the Kansas City Fashion Group in 1946, drawing from her experience as a member of the original New York Fashion Group. 

In 1952, Fanny Fern Fitzwater was offered a job by Elizabeth Arden, founder of the Elizabeth Arden beauty company, to head their newly formed fashion department. Fitzwater moved back to New York to manage and develop the in-house designers and clothing line. She lived and worked there until her death in 1966, at age seventy-nine.

Fanny Fern Fitzwater had an impact on the fashion world of her time through her expansive reviews and illustrations. Yet she also created conditions for the existence of today's fashion world through her work as an educator, community organizer and industry leader.