Career
Sheppard was credited with having "revolutionized fashion reporting with her reports in the New York City Herald Tribune (1940-1956)". Her syndicated column, Inside Fashion, made her the most influential fashion arbiter of the 1950s and 1960s. Her fashion columns at the New York Herald Tribune carried Joe Eula"s illustrations.
"lieutenant"s all terribly cute, but like giving a girl candy when she craves steak." (on some designers" one-time predilection for buttons and bows)
"Pretty sexy for a tall girl, but it may make a short one disappear altogether." (on a dress she was not crazy about)
"Dessès has always been inspired by birds.
I think it"s time somebody came right out and told this nice guy to switch to biology or some other ology. Anything but birds." (On Jean Dessès" "dovetail look")
"Foreign the second time in history, women are in a dither about a young man, called Valentino.
This time he is not a movie star, but a fashion designer from Rome." (In 1964 for the Boston Post about the designer Valentino)
She died in 1984, aged 84, from cancer in New York City. Andy Warhol succinctly memorialized her in his diary entry of Monday, November 12, 1984, writing, "Oh and the day had started out with Eugenia Sheppard dying of cancer.
She invented fashion and gossip together."
The Eugenia Sheppard Award for journalism has been given annually since 1987 by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
André Leon Talley
Robin Givhan
Cathy Horyn.