Kate Betts
Encyclopedia
Kate Betts, born March 8, 1964, is an American fashion journalist
. Currently she is a contributing editor
at Time
and The Daily Beast
, among other freelance writing positions, and reporting on fashion for CNN
. She lives in New York with her family.
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, one of the youngest editors of a fashion magazine ever, for two years. In 2011 her book Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama
and the Power of Style will be published by Clarkson Potter.
. Her father, Hobart Betts, was a prominent architect; her mother Glynne is a photographer. She attended Princeton University
, where she majored in European history and began writing and reporting for The Daily Princetonian
. After graduating in 1986, she went to work in France as a freelance journalist for Metropolitan Home
, European Travel & Life and the International Herald Tribune
. An article she wrote for one of these publications about boar hunting
in Brittany
caught the attention of publishing mogul John Fairchild. He hired her as a features writer for Fairchild Publications' Paris
bureau, overseeing fashion coverage for Women's Wear Daily
, W
and M magazines.
She has recalled this period of her career as essential to her development as a fashion journalist.
She wrote stories about the Sénanque Abbey
's lavender
fields, interviewed Jeane Kirkpatrick
and penetrated closed fashion show
s. In that capacity she also helped to launch W Europe.
, where she took over as fashion news director at Vogue
. After a difficult initial adjustment, she beefed up the magazine's news coverage, and in 1995 created its Index section, an aggregate of beauty, health and style briefs that soon became one of the magazine's most popular sections. "Kate felt you should be able to tear out pages and have information you really need," said Vogue' s arts editor Michael Boodro.
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.
In the late 1990s, disagreements between the two over the magazine's direction became more entrenched. Betts felt the magazine was losing its focus on fashion, while Wintour thought the popular culture
angles Betts wanted were beneath Vogue' s readers. "I think Anna views her ideal reader as an Anne Bass type," said a Vogue staffer later. "She thinks the Vogue reader doesn't give a shit about hip hop
". Wintour began pairing Betts with other, more junior Vogue editors, whose journalistic credentials Betts had found lacking in comparison to her own. She especially disliked Plum Sykes
, whom she reportedly described as "a pretentious airhead".
Eventually her discontent with the magazine's direction became known outside it, and Condé Nast offered her the editorship of Details
. She turned it down and quietly began to look outside the company. In 1999 Hearst offered her the chance to take over Harper's Bazaar
, filling the vacancy left by Liz Tilberis, another former likely successor to Wintour, who had died earlier that year of ovarian cancer
. Company president Cathie Black
was impressed with her demo issue.
After first denying to Wintour reports that she had accepted the position, she came in shortly after starting maternity leave and told her boss the truth, then left, after reportedly declining the company's last offer, the editorship of since-defunct Mademoiselle
. Betts complained to the New York Times that Wintour hadn't even sent her a baby gift, but Wintour later wrote an editor's letter bidding her farewell and wishing her success. Three days after starting at Bazaar, she gave birth to her first child.
and child be allowed to accompany her on the Concorde
to Paris for the shows there. She also denied another report that staffers, who had supposedly starting calling her "Anna Junior", had been forbidden to have pictures of their families at their desks. As editor, she devoted her first four months to completely redesigning the magazine, most notably its logo
. She let go
two-thirds of the staff and hired new, established writers like Lynn Hirschberg and Bret Easton Ellis
to cover topics like politics and art. During this time she was also the subject of a Lifetime documentary, Putting Baby to Bed: Wife, Mother, and Editor in Chief.
Her goal was to remake the magazine along the lines she would have developed Vogue. "I always wanted a magazine that's avant-garde and up-to-the-minute," she said. "The whole point of fashion is to showcase what's happening and what's new". The fashion world was eager to see the result but saw pitfalls. ""I think it's exciting to have new blood in a magazine which hasn't been doing well for a very long time", said Oscar de la Renta
. Others warned that "the danger in turning a high-end fashion magazine into this young, pop-culture thing is that she'll come up with Jane
. And there already is a Jane. Her challenge is to make Harper's young and hip without making it cheap."
Early circulation figures showed a modest increase. An audit
later on showed, in fact, that readership, already declining in the later years of Tilberis's tenure, had dropped even more. The magazine was redesigned again. Betts' staff shakeup continued. "Nobody seemed able to please her", lamented one writer. One Bazaar employee who had worked for Wintour as well noted that she had "adopted every Anna Wintourism under the sun" in her management style, without being as decisive.
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".
When asked about it later, Betts was philosophical about the experience:
Style section, and elsewhere in the paper. One piece in the latter category, a highly negative 2003 review in the Book Review of Lauren Weisberger
's debut novel The Devil Wears Prada, the basis for the film of that name
, attracted some criticism of its own. Weisberger had worked as one of Wintour's personal assistant
s a few years earlier, and reportedly based her main character, Miranda Priestly, a tyrannical fashion magazine editor, on Wintour. At the end, Betts belittled Weisberger for "seem[ing] to have understood almost nothing about the isolation and pressure of the job her boss was doing, or what it might cost a person like Miranda Priestly to become a character like Miranda Priestly" despite her time at Wintour's side.
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 pseudonym
ous 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 in the worsening economy. Time has retained Betts as a contributing editor, and hopes it could bring the supplement back when the economy recovers.
Fashion journalism
Fashion journalism is an umbrella term used to describe all aspects of published fashion media. It includes fashion writers, fashion critics or fashion reporters...
. Currently she is a contributing editor
Contributing editor
A contributing editor is a magazine job title that varies in responsibilities. Most often, a contributing editor is a freelancer who has proven ability and readership draw. The contributing editor regularly contributes articles to the publication but does not actually edit articles, and the title...
at Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...
, among other freelance writing positions, and reporting on fashion for CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
. She lives in New York with her family.
She began her career at Fairchild Publications' European office in Paris. During the 1990s she became a senior editor at American Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
, where she was considered the likely successor to Anna Wintour
Anna Wintour
Anna Wintour, OBE is the British-born editor-in-chief of American Vogue, a position she has held since 1988. With her trademark pageboy bob haircut and sunglasses, Wintour has become an institution throughout the fashion world, widely praised for her eye for fashion trends and her support for...
as editor-in-chief. She later became the editor of Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
instead, one of the youngest editors of a fashion magazine ever, for two years. In 2011 her book Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is the wife of the 44th and incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States...
and the Power of Style will be published by Clarkson Potter.
1980s
Betts was born and raised in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Her father, Hobart Betts, was a prominent architect; her mother Glynne is a photographer. She attended Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, where she majored in European history and began writing and reporting for The Daily Princetonian
The Daily Princetonian
The Daily Princetonian is the daily independent student newspaper of Princeton University. It is published five days a week from September to May and three days a week during the University's Reading Period in January and May.- Finances :...
. After graduating in 1986, she went to work in France as a freelance journalist for Metropolitan Home
Metropolitan Home
Metropolitan Home was a magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. The magazine focused on "high-end modern design and interiors, blended with intelligent reporting, to connect with a progressive reader mindset." It was originally published from 1974 through 1981 as Apartment Life,...
, European Travel & Life and the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
. An article she wrote for one of these publications about boar hunting
Boar hunting
Boar hunting is generally the practice of hunting wild boars, but can also extend to feral pigs and peccaries. A full-sized boar is a large animal armed with sharp tusks which it uses to defend itself. Boar hunting has often been a test of bravery....
in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
caught the attention of publishing mogul John Fairchild. He hired her as a features writer for Fairchild Publications' Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
bureau, overseeing fashion coverage for Women's Wear Daily
Women's Wear Daily
Women's Wear Daily is a fashion-industry trade journal sometimes called "the bible of fashion." WWD delivers information and intelligence on changing trends and breaking news in the fashion, beauty and retail industries with a readership composed largely of retailers, designers, manufacturers,...
, W
W (magazine)
W is a monthly American fashion magazine published by Condé Nast Publications, who purchased original owner Fairchild Publications in 1999. It was created in 1971 by the publisher of sister magazine Woman's Wear Daily, James Brady. The magazine is an oversize format – ten inches wide and...
and M magazines.
She has recalled this period of her career as essential to her development as a fashion journalist.
She wrote stories about the Sénanque Abbey
Sénanque Abbey
Sénanque Abbey is a Cistercian abbey near the village of Gordes in the département of the Vaucluse in Provence, France.-First foundation:...
's lavender
Lavender
The lavenders are a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. An Old World genus, distributed from Macaronesia across Africa, the Mediterranean, South-West Asia, Arabia, Western Iran and South-East India...
fields, interviewed Jeane Kirkpatrick
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick was an American ambassador and an ardent anticommunist. After serving as Ronald Reagan's foreign policy adviser in his 1980 campaign and later in his Cabinet, the longtime Democrat-turned-Republican was nominated as the U.S...
and penetrated closed fashion show
Fashion show
A fashion show is an event put on by a fashion designer to showcase his or her upcoming line of clothing during Fashion Week. Fashion shows debut every season, particularly the Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter seasons. This is where the latest fashion trends are made...
s. In that capacity she also helped to launch W Europe.
1990s
After two years, she became the bureau chief. The following year, 1991, she left Fairchild and Paris for New York and Condé NastCondé Nast Publications
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
, where she took over as fashion news director at Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
. After a difficult initial adjustment, she beefed up the magazine's news coverage, and in 1995 created its Index section, an aggregate of beauty, health and style briefs that soon became one of the magazine's most popular sections. "Kate felt you should be able to tear out pages and have information you really need," said Vogue
This earned her the favor of the magazine's editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour
Anna Wintour
Anna Wintour, OBE is the British-born editor-in-chief of American Vogue, a position she has held since 1988. With her trademark pageboy bob haircut and sunglasses, Wintour has become an institution throughout the fashion world, widely praised for her eye for fashion trends and her support for...
. 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.
In the late 1990s, disagreements between the two over the magazine's direction became more entrenched. Betts felt the magazine was losing its focus on fashion, while Wintour thought the popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
angles Betts wanted were beneath Vogue
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
". Wintour began pairing Betts with other, more junior Vogue editors, whose journalistic credentials Betts had found lacking in comparison to her own. She especially disliked Plum Sykes
Plum Sykes
Victoria "Plum" Sykes is an English-born fashion-writer, novelist and New York socialite. "Plum" was a childhood nickname .- Early years and antecedents :...
, whom she reportedly described as "a pretentious airhead".
Eventually her discontent with the magazine's direction became known outside it, and Condé Nast offered her the editorship of Details
Details (magazine)
Details is an American monthly men's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications, founded in 1982. Though primarily a magazine devoted to fashion and lifestyle, Details also features reports on relevant social and political issues.-History:...
. She turned it down and quietly began to look outside the company. In 1999 Hearst offered her the chance to take over Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
, filling the vacancy left by Liz Tilberis, another former likely successor to Wintour, who had died earlier that year of ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is a cancerous growth arising from the ovary. Symptoms are frequently very subtle early on and may include: bloating, pelvic pain, difficulty eating and frequent urination, and are easily confused with other illnesses....
. Company president Cathie Black
Cathie Black
Cathleen Prunty "Cathie" Black is a former New York City Schools Chancellor. On April 7, 2011, Black stepped down from her position after 95 days on the job. Her appointment to replace longtime Chancellor Joel Klein was announced on November 9, 2010 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and became effective...
was impressed with her demo issue.
After first denying to Wintour reports that she had accepted the position, she came in shortly after starting maternity leave and told her boss the truth, then left, after reportedly declining the company's last offer, the editorship of since-defunct Mademoiselle
Mademoiselle (magazine)
Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
. Betts complained to the New York Times that Wintour hadn't even sent her a baby gift, but Wintour later wrote an editor's letter bidding her farewell and wishing her success. Three days after starting at Bazaar, she gave birth to her first child.
Harper's Bazaar editorship
Her transition, as the youngest editor ever at America's oldest fashion magazine, was rough. Page Six reported that she had demanded that her nannyNanny
A nanny, childminder or child care provider, is an individual who provides care for one or more children in a family as a service...
and child be allowed to accompany her on the Concorde
Concorde
Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport . It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation...
to Paris for the shows there. She also denied another report that staffers, who had supposedly starting calling her "Anna Junior", had been forbidden to have pictures of their families at their desks. As editor, she devoted her first four months to completely redesigning the magazine, most notably its logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
. She let go
Termination of employment
-Involuntary termination:Involuntary termination is the employee's departure at the hands of the employer. There are two basic types of involuntary termination, known often as being "fired" and "laid off." To be fired, as opposed to being laid off, is generally thought of to be the employee's...
two-thirds of the staff and hired new, established writers like Lynn Hirschberg and Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 different languages. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney...
to cover topics like politics and art. During this time she was also the subject of a Lifetime documentary, Putting Baby to Bed: Wife, Mother, and Editor in Chief.
Her goal was to remake the magazine along the lines she would have developed Vogue. "I always wanted a magazine that's avant-garde and up-to-the-minute," she said. "The whole point of fashion is to showcase what's happening and what's new". The fashion world was eager to see the result but saw pitfalls. ""I think it's exciting to have new blood in a magazine which hasn't been doing well for a very long time", said Oscar de la Renta
Oscar de la Renta
Oscar de la Renta is one of the world's leading fashion designers. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1973.-Career:...
. Others warned that "the danger in turning a high-end fashion magazine into this young, pop-culture thing is that she'll come up with Jane
Jane (magazine)
Jane was an American magazine created to appeal to the women who grew up reading Sassy Magazine, both of which had Jane Pratt as founding editor. Its original target audience was aged 18–34, and was designed to appeal to women who are irreverent...
. And there already is a Jane. Her challenge is to make Harper's young and hip without making it cheap."
Early circulation figures showed a modest increase. An audit
Audit
The general definition of an audit is an evaluation of a person, organization, system, process, enterprise, project or product. The term most commonly refers to audits in accounting, but similar concepts also exist in project management, quality management, and energy conservation.- Accounting...
later on showed, in fact, that readership, already declining in the later years of Tilberis's tenure, had dropped even more. The magazine was redesigned again. Betts' staff shakeup continued. "Nobody seemed able to please her", lamented one writer. One Bazaar employee who had worked for Wintour as well noted that she had "adopted every Anna Wintourism under the sun" in her management style, without being as decisive.
It soon became apparent that it wasn't working out. Not quite two years later, in May 2001, she was replaced by Glenda Bailey
Glenda Bailey
Glenda Adrianne Bailey OBE is the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, a monthly fashion magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. She was appointed to this position in May 2001. Before joining Harper's Bazaar, she served as the editor-in-chief at the U.S...
of Marie Claire
Marie Claire
Marie Claire is a monthly women's magazine first published in France but also distributed in other countries with editions specific to them and in their languages. While each country shares its own special voice with its audience, the United States edition focuses on women around the world and...
. 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".
When asked about it later, Betts was philosophical about the experience:
After Bazaar
After Bazaar, Betts began doing freelance work for The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Style section, and elsewhere in the paper. One piece in the latter category, a highly negative 2003 review in the Book Review of Lauren Weisberger
Lauren Weisberger
Lauren Weisberger is an American novelist and author of the 2003 bestseller The Devil Wears Prada, a speculated roman à clef of her real life experience as a put-upon assistant to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour....
's debut novel The Devil Wears Prada, the basis for the film of that name
The Devil Wears Prada (film)
The Devil Wears Prada is a 2006 comedy-drama film, a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. It stars Anne Hathaway as Andrea Sachs, a recent college graduate who goes to New York City and gets a job as a co-assistant to powerful and demanding fashion magazine...
, attracted some criticism of its own. Weisberger had worked as one of Wintour's personal assistant
Personal assistant
A personal assistant or personal aide is someone who assists in daily business or personal tasks. It is common in design to have a PDA, or personal design assistant....
s a few years earlier, and reportedly based her main character, Miranda Priestly, a tyrannical fashion magazine editor, on Wintour. At the end, Betts belittled Weisberger for "seem[ing] to have understood almost nothing about the isolation and pressure of the job her boss was doing, or what it might cost a person like Miranda Priestly to become a character like Miranda Priestly" despite her time at Wintour's side.
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
Gawker.com
Gawker is a newsmagazine/blog based in New York City that bills itself as "the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip" and focuses on celebrities and the media industry....
. "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
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
interview. "I don't know her. I can't presume to know." In her second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing
Everyone Worth Knowing
Everyone Worth Knowing is Lauren Weisberger's second novel. Published in 2005, it tells the story of Bette Robinson, a single woman in New York City caught up in the city's party circuit through a new job in public relations....
, Weisberger had a character suggest that a pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
ous 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
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
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 in the worsening economy. Time has retained Betts as a contributing editor, and hopes it could bring the supplement back when the economy recovers.