Ernestine Carter

Ernestine Marie Carter OBE (née Fantl; 10 October 1906 – 1 August 1983) was an American-born British museum curator, journalist, and fashion writer. She became hugely influential in her roles as women's editor, and later associate editor of The Sunday Times.

Her obituary described her as not only influencing British taste, but also putting her authority behind emerging fashion talent, becoming: "not only the acknowledged leader among women's fashion writers but also created a reputation for British fashion at a time when this country was considered a desert". In particular, she was instrumental in adding her authority to bolster the growing reputation of designers such as Mary Quant, Jean Muir, Gina Fratini and John Bates. She studied modern and contemporary art and design at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, from which she graduated in 1927. As Ernestine M. Fantl, she curated these exhibitions at MOMA: 1935: Contemporary Architecture in California 1935: The Recent Work of Le Corbusier 1936: Posters by Cassandre 1936: Cubism and Abstract Art 1936: Architecture in Government Housing 1936: Exposition Architecture 1937: Modern Architecture in England

In 1936 she married a British antiquarian book dealer, John Waynflete Carter (1905–1975), and the Carters eventually moved to London. The book, which included a foreword by Edward R. Murrow, went into five printings. Later in the war, Carter went to work for the U.S. office of war information in London. Her first trip to Paris for the magazine was to report on Christian Dior's landmark New Look collection, launched 12 February 1947. From 1952 to 1954, she wrote her first newspaper column, a cookery section for The Observer, during which time she published a cookbook called Flash In The Pan (1953). Carter encouraged the emergence of London as a major centre of fashion in the 1960s.

In 1962, Carter was appointed to the National Council for Diplomas in Art and Design, a post awarded by the Minister of Education. She was appointed an OBE in 1964. In the same year, she became a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

In 1966, she was the first individual fashion journalist to be invited to select an outfit for the Dress Of The Year, for which she chose a futuristic PVC and linen ensemble by Michèle Rosier, Young Jaeger and Simone Mirman. Two years later, she was appointed associate editor of The Sunday Times, a role she held until her retirement from the paper in 1972. This is known both as the Ernestine Carter Collection and as The Sunday Times Fashion Archive. The Fashion Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum both own garments from Carter's wardrobe.