At the Long Beach Museum of Art and Claire's at the Museum are front row, left to right; Marsha Petersen Kenny, Sue Ann Robinson, Becky Hollingsworth, back row, left to right: Gayle Baizer, Judi Silverman Wax, Tunie Munson-Benson, Katie Brown Kane, Laura Deutsch, Suzanne Burgoyne, and Melinda Brown. not pictured: Barbara Packer, and Jill Wright. An unusual and remarkable reunion took place at the Long Beach Museum of Art on Saturday, August 29, 2010 when the Museum's Director of Collections Sue Ann Robinson hosted a gathering of former Mademoiselle Magazine Guest Editors. Forty-two years after this group of women won positions as Guest Editors for the annual College Issue of the magazine, they traveled to Southern California to reconnect, share memories, and compare life stories of the intervening forty-two years! The women, who traveled to California from across the country, enjoyed brunch at Claire's at the Museum and a tour of A Light in the Shadow--Decades of Art by Women, part of the Celebrating Sixty anniversary at the Long Beach Museum of Art.
Mademoiselle, a publication of Condé Nast, ceased publication in 2001, but had a long history since 1935 as an influential women's magazine which addressed issues that significantly altered women's lives over the course of decades. It was especially noted for fifty-seven years of discovering and publishing great writers' short stories by Truman Capote, Joyce Carol Oates, William Faulkner, James Baldwin, Flannery O'Connor, Barbara Kingsolver, and Sylvia Plath, among others.
For forty years between 1939 and 1979, the magazine sponsored an annual two-part talent contest for college women that established a national network, the College Board, and a chance for twenty women to be selected to come to New York for one month and work on the August issue of the magazine. The guest editors experienced an intense month including travel, celebrity interviews, makeovers through the famous Revlon Red Door on Fifth Avenue, and an appearance at the fall fashion preview in Madison Square Garden. It was an immersion into publishing, fashion, and New York and the women were featured in the August College Issue of Mademoiselle. This group of guest editors in the summer of 1968 interviewed Ruth Gordon (after the premiere of Rosemary's Baby), Truman Capote (after the publication of In Cold Blood), Dustin Hoffman (after The Graduate) artist Peter Max, and acclaimed photographer Gordon Parks. At this August's reunion, the former Guest Editors shared memories of their time in Mexico--including participating in a bull fight--as well as the experience of working in New York and living at the famed Barbizon Hotel for Women. The experience, though short, was an opportunity to get a kick-start for our careers. Robinson vividly recalls the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City that foretold her subsequent long involvement in the museum profession. The list of accomplishments of former guest editors in the fields of writing, fashion design, visual arts, and publishing is illuminating. Not having stayed in touch for over 40 years, most of our group was eager to learn what challenges we have faced and met as individuals and professionals. Our group represents accomplishments in college teaching, visual arts, theater, marketing and press relations, entrepreneurship, literature, fashion design and interior design. It was an inspiring reunion.
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