Fashion editor Polly Mellen, 100, died on Dec. 12. A Miss Porter’s girl, she was a nurse’s aide in WWII, and began working as a salesgirl at Lord & Taylor, where she was discovered by Diana Vreeland. Mellen worked her way up as fashion and photo editor at Mademoiselle (her debut job, in 1950), and later for decades at Harper’s Bazaar and then Vogue; she later moved to Allure before retiring. She delighted in creating startling images with “her” photographers (such as Nastassja Kinski wrapped in a snake), but was also known as a terror around the office—there was more than a little Miranda Priestley (The Devil Wears Prada) and Maggie Prescott (Funny Face) in her. Mellen recently told W that she possessed “A certain creativity, I suppose. A different approach to a subject. My approach was very often a bit avant-garde, shall we say. And because of that, I was an editor who was different.”
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