![]() ![]() Yet there was something very practical about the way she dressed, too. One of Simpson’s assistants at Vogue in the ’50s, Marie Jose Lepicard, recalls her wearing “nothing but black dresses and huge jewels. She had a rigorous, minimal look long before minimalism and rigor held any sway. Her working look as an editor cut a swath through New York. “She has this deep thirst for life, which is satiated only by more experience and more knowledge.” “Her timing is unreal, even now,” says her strength and conditioning coach, Lyon Marcus. But Simpson’s real gift, one that has stayed with her long after she left her working days behind, is that she has been able to navigate her way through each new uncharted area of her life-through marriage, divorce, an unconventional love life, and a five-decade career-clearly identifying the EXIT sign and marching toward it without so much as a backward glance. It’s almost certain you have never heard of Babs Simpson, but she was one of the magazine world’s most exalted and erudite creative talents, having worked her magic as a fashion editor at Vogue from the ’40s to the ’60s, and then styling interiors shoots at House & Garden through the ’70s and ’80s. If the party is over, you have to understand it’s time to move on.” Today, at the age of 105, the former Vogue editor died.īabs Simpson-a sprightly, sharp, and superbly pithy 93 years old-maintains that the secret of life all comes down to a single, simple, straightforward belief: “I have always thought,” she says with a clear, steady gaze and an even clearer, steadier voice (an imperious voice, one might say, though that would deny the warm, playful undertones), “that it’s as important to know when to leave as much as it is to arrive. This story was published in Vogue’s August 2006 Age Issue and is reprinted here in memory of a woman who made a mark on the history of fashion.
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