Biographies: Babs Simpson - Actor

Biographies

 [1 Content]

---

An American magazine editor, who is best known for her 25-year tenure at Vogue as a fashion editor. Babs Simpson was the eldest of four children. She was born on April 9, 1913, in Beijing, China, to Daniel Ammen de Menocal, a banker from an aristocratic Cuban family, and Beatrice de Menocal, a socialite from New York City. The family resided in South America before settling in Boston, Massachusetts. Two years after moving to Manhattan, in 1944, a friend helped Babs get a position at Harper's Bazaar, working in a photographer's studio, after which she was engaged to work for the magazine itself, under editor Carmel Snow. Simpson left Harper's Bazaar to work at Vogue in 1947, remaining there until 1972. During her work as a fashion editor, she covered fashion shows and produced photo shoots. Moreover, she collaborated with the photographer Irving Penn on a lot of his iconic pictures. Babs also styled what would become Marilyn Monroe's final photo shoot, photographed by Bert Stern a month before her death. After she had left Vogue, she joined House & Garden magazine from 1972 until it was closed in 1993. In 2006, at 93, she became the oldest person to appear in Vogue when she was featured in its annual Age Issue. In 2012, at 99, she appeared in In Vogue: The Editor's Eye, a documentary about Vogue's fashion editors. She died on January 7, 2019, in Rye, New York, USA, at the age of 105.

• 20 September 2022
• Dalia Saad