The Observer, 1952-1954

From 1946 to 1949, Carter was Fashion Editor of Harper's Bazaar, and from 1952 to 1954 contributed to The Observer. But the decisive step for her career and for fashion was her joining The Sunday Times in 1955. Over the next 17 years she made herself not only the acknowledged leader among women's fashion writers but also created a reputation for British fashion at a time when it was considered a desert and British fashion writers were regarded throughout the world as second class citizens.

In the immediate postwar years her task had been to make fashion copy acceptable at all and she crusaded for the Dior New Look. With the coming of the 1960s she was quick to recognize that haute couture was not all, and was among the first to identify and promote the talents of British designers in her influential columns in The Sunday Times and through the Sunday Times International Fashion Awards, created in 1963. From being a fashion backwater, London found itself a city with the eyes of the world on it and Ernestine Carter lent her authority to the rising reputations of designers such as Mary Quant, Jean Muir, Gina Frattini and John Bates.

This series consists of fashion articles written by Ernestine Fantl Carter for a number of publications including The Sunday Times, Harper's Bazaar, and The Observer, dating from 1952 to 1983. Carter also wrote obituaries for members of the fashion industry, including Carmel Snow. Many of these articles were clipped out of newspapers and assembled into scrapbooks by Carter.