John Fairchild (editor)

John Burr Fairchild (March 6, 1927 – February 27, 2015) was the publisher and editor in chief of Women's Wear Daily from 1960 to 1996 and the founding editor of W magazine in 1972.

Life

Fairchild was born in Newark, New Jersey,^[1] and grew up in Glen Ridge. His father was Louis Fairchild, who joined WWD in 1924, and Louis's father was Edmund Fairchild, the founder of Fairchild Publications.^[2] John was a direct descendant of Vice President Aaron Burr. He went to the Kent School in Kent, Connecticut and then Princeton. He had a brief tour in the Army but did not see combat. In 1949, while at Fairchild's Paris office, he met his future wife Jill.^[3]

Fairchild died on February 27, 2015 at age of 87.^[4]

Career

He became the European bureau chief of Fairchild Publications in 1955, the publisher of Women's Wear Daily in 1960 and the founder of W in 1972. He wrote a column for the back page of W under the pseudonym Countess Louise J. Esterhazy.^[1] Under his control, Women's Wear Daily was transformed from a negligible trade journal into a notorious, influential and controversial fashion publication that became known as the "bible of fashion".^[5][6]

Publications

• Fairchild, John (1989). Chic savages. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671683344. 
• Fairchild, John (1965). The fashionable savages. Doubleday. 
• Fairchild, John (1967). The moonflower couple. Doubleday. 

Notes