by Patricia Peterson, 99, a pioneering fashion editor and former Henri Bendel Executive, died on Sunday in her house in New York City.
Throughout her life, she often teamed up with her photographer husband Gm Mal, who contained relatively unknown women in motion instead of standing still. From 1957 to 1977, Peterson brought the foreground of photographers such as Cecil Bourdin, Diane Arbus, Saul Head, Francesco Scavullo, Hiro and others to the fore during her run. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she also took the illustrations of Andy Warhol.
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Her husband, who was known as a GUS, was a lion in the Pantheon of fashion photographers and helped to give talents such as Arthur Elgort and Deborah Turbeville. “Pat” Peterson also cultivated trendsetters such as Carrie Donovan and Bernadine Morris in their days of moderators.
According to her daughter Annika Peterson, the couple was proud to present Naomi Sims on the cover of August 27, 1967, issue of Fashion of the Times. The black model worked in his exhibition room for the fashion designer Halston when she saw her for the first time and both knew immediately that she was the woman you were looking for. While many power pairs rely on 50-50 partnerships to thrive, Annika Peterson said: “It wasn’t 50-50 with my parents. It was more 100-100.”
The all-in enthusiasm of the Petsonsons resulted from their interest in art, politics, music, architecture, travel and more and not just a great interest in others, but also acute hearing skills. Their originality in the studio or on the street reflected how they questioned fashion forms and questioned social issues. Interested in people, art, jazz, food, nature and other topics, was a constant search for discoveries, how they lived their lives, said Annika Peterson, the owner of the Turn Galeery in New York City.
“Even if my mother was not interested at the beginning, she would still be open to the exploration. She told me that Geoffrey Bee made her to a baseball game (although she really didn’t care about sports),” said Annika Peterson. “I remember that they described the sweet summer air that described the night light and how the players were like dancers in the field. They and my father always found romance in simple things. They were both on a constant search with an never -ending sharp eye. If people were with them, they really felt this union.”
In 1967, Pat Peterson and her husband only had 30 minutes and an outfit and a hat to work with which the model “Twiggy” first shot. The end result was a composite of a close-up of your face and her eyes with cabbage, and the model that was stretched out on the floor dressed in black. Peterson’s copy was: “Black is back and Elfin Twiggy wears it. … Black will dominate the future.”
This type of foresight would be shared for decades before the all-black wardrobes with the cities in large cities. In time, Peterson helped, among other things, ballet flats, competitive bathing clothes and courrèges. When she took over the Guide Fashion Editor Post for the first time in 1957, Peterson headed a team of 12 women and supervised the shootings for the over 1,000 fashion photos, which were shown annually in daily and on Sunday times. She traveled as a working woman to report the European collections, said her son Jan. (A photo from 1958 shows the female reporters of the newspaper who works upwards.)
“As a pioneer who was very proud to be a woman in the New York Times, who was also independent and not so commercially minded,” said her son. “She was also very proud to work with GUS, who was definitely an eccentric outsider in the fashion world.”
Peterson joined the New York Times in December 1956 as deputy editor in the Department of Food, Fashion, Family, Family and Furniture and Furniture. Over time, she was considered one of the flavors in the middle of forces such as Diana Vreeland and Eugenia Sheppard, Peterson, chairman of the committee, which presented the presentation of the jury of the Coty American Fashion Critics ‘Award’ Coty American Fashion Critics. The Coty Awards were a forerunner of the CFDA Awards. Peterson’s idea where the campaign appeared in 1967 when Yves Saint Laurent had seen her a month after the retailers had seen it, his collection showed the media. She said to WWD: “Our job is to be where the news takes place. I think St. Laurent will lose the ban on press, and [he] Do not receive as much advertising as Balenciaga and Givenchy receive. “
Peterson met the Swedish American for the first time that she would later marry at a cocktail party in Westhampton. With the other photographer Fernand Fernand Feumsagives, he had camping, whose wife Lisa was a Swedish model and artist. Peterson told the WWD in 2023: “I noticed him and thought:” This is a strange thing. A man wateres down the flowers. “He was very in nature – the Swedes are particularly the Swedes.” Another curiosity was the Volkswagen Beetle – a rarity in the United States at that time – when Peterson drove back to Manhattan. The couple married 1956. Gus died in 2017.
She was born in Patricia Louis in Chicago and visited the Northwestern University, where she studied art history and served as a fashion editor of the student newspaper, The Purple Papagle. After graduating in 1948, she joined Marshall Fields in Mode -Mercchandising. Two years later, the dark -haired creative moved to New York City. When she applied for the advice of her fashion editor Ningnie Moore, she came to Mademoiselle as fashion associations and worked on a mademoisel fashion and goods editor. Years later, from 1977 to 1989 she became Vice President of Advertising, Fashion and Advertising.
Peterson said about the 2023 -retrospective of GUS ‘work at Deborah Bell photographs: “I don’t want to sound so boastful, but I am amazed at how original and unorthodox his photos are because they are very tasteful.
She also triggered fashion trends and hired buyers through her job in Henri Bendel in European labels. Her innovative strength was also seen in the widow in Henri Bendel, where the then head of the retailer, Geraldine Stutz, was known as revolutionary. Publicist Marion Greenberg remembered how she started “getting” in the early 1980s when she started “get” Pat immediately “with her first fashion customer, comme des Garcons, and organized with her husband for advertising for the shop, which was the first to wear clothing,” said Greenberg.
In the late 1980s, according to Greenberg, she reacted in a similar way to Jil Sander’s collection. “Pat was the true deal and she understood that the designers I worked with were particularly, unique and authentic. These times were of another era that was very practical and very personal. I appreciate these memories,” said Greenberg.
Peterson is survived by her daughter Annika and her son Jan..
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