Kate Betts

Katherine Hadley Betts (born March 8, 1964) is an American fashion journalist. As of 2010, she was a contributing editor at Time and The Daily Beast, among other freelance writing positions, and reporting on fashion for CNN.

She began her career at Fairchild Publications' European office in Paris. During the 1990s, she became a senior editor at American Vogue, where she was considered the likely successor to Anna Wintour as editor-in-chief. She later became the editor of Harper's Bazaar instead, for two years. In 2011, her book Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style was published by Clarkson Potter. After graduating, she went to work in France as a freelance journalist for Metropolitan Home, European Travel & Life and the International Herald Tribune.

This earned her the favor of the magazine's editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour. She was the only person willing to publicly disagree with "Nuclear Wintour" around the offices, further impressing her boss. In time, Betts came to be seen as the likely successor to Wintour whenever she decided to step down from one of fashion's most prestigious posts.

It soon became apparent that it wasn't working out. Not quite two years later, in May 2001, she was replaced by Glenda Bailey of Marie Claire. Looking back on her tenure, one of her former deputies said "She was a control freak, and she wasn't good with people. It makes me think that there was truth to [the notion] that she was too young".

Her review, it was noted, "alternates between sniping at the author and sucking up to former Vogue cronies." "As far as book reviews go, Betts' review isn't an actual review", said Gawker.com. "It's really just an ethical analysis of Weisberger's decision to trash her ex-boss in print". "What more can I say? I can't speak to anyone's agenda", Weisberger, who admitted she was curious as to why Betts had been assigned the first of two harsh reviews that ran in the Times''' pages, responded in a Salon.com interview. "I don't know her. I can't presume to know." In her second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, Weisberger had a character suggest that a pseudonymous online gossip columnist was "that ex-fashion editor—oh, what is her name? The one who keeps busy penning nasty book reviews". It was read as a reference to Betts.

In 2004, she returned to the editorial ranks when Time hired her as the editor of its Style & Design section. It was a special supplement focusing on fashion and related stories published six times a year with the U.S., Europe, and Asian editions of the magazine. "She brings the savviest sense in terms of the role that fashion plays in our lives -- and the business of fashion", said editor Jim Kelly. Betts again said she planned for the supplement to cover fashion within a broader social context as she had tried to do at Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. The supplement was discontinued in late 2009 when the luxury goods market declined due to the 2008 financial crisis. Time'' has retained Betts as a contributing editor, and hopes it could bring the supplement back when the economy recovers.