Marion Hume is a fashion editor, based in London. For more than two decades, she has written for newspapers and magazines in the US, the UK and Australia.
Hume is currently the International Fashion Editor for The Australian Financial Review (AFR) for which her in-depth profiles include Zara, e-tailer Natalie Massenet and Topshop’s Sir Philip Green. In the UK, she contributes to The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Saturday Telegraph Magazine and The Gentlewoman. In the US, she has recently contributed to W and to Departures.
Hume was a contributing editor at TIME Style & Design, a special issue published six times a year in the United States, Europe and Asia, for which she reported from Beijing, Shanghai, Istanbul, Dubai, London, Paris and Milan. Profiles for TIME magazine’s Pursuits section, include actor and winemaker, Sam Neill.
Previously, Hume was a contributing editor for US Harper’s Bazaar from June 1999 to June 2001, for which her many stories included Mr. America, a profile of Ralph Lauren and in 1999, “She’s got a Brand New Bag”, the article credited with identifying the “it” bag phenomenon. Under contract with US Vogue for years, her first Vogue profile, of Vivienne Westwood, appeared in 1994.
In 1997, Hume moved to Sydney to edit Vogue Australia. Her first cover featured Naomi Campbell photographed by Peter Lindbergh. In a global coup, Kate Winslet handed over the diaries she kept during the filming of “Titanic” to the magazine. Hume was fired amidst a media storm in 1998. She joined News Ltd, where she founded the highly successful Fashion Extra supplements. Moving to Fairfax Media Ltd in 2001, she continues to profile compelling people – from Olympian, Ian Thorpe to Formula 1 Racing driver, Mark Webber to actress Emma Thompson for Sunday Life Magazine. The AFR’s twice-yearly fashion specials have included profiles of Tom Ford, Dries van Noten and Hermes.
Hume is also the Travel Editor (London) for Harper’s Bazaar Australia.
She is a founding partner of the the travel website runawaynow.com for which she has toured Cornwall in a Bentley, walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival and travelled to Venice on the Orient Express.
Hume’s novel, The Fashion Pack was published in 2005 by Penguin. She was a contributor to The Cutting Edge (V&A 1994) and collaborated on the V&A exhibition of the same name as well as the V&A’s Streetstyle (1995). Her commercial work includes projects for Vidal Sassoon and LVMH.
Hume has contributed to The London Sunday Times, The Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The New York Observer, Elle, marie claire, Esquire and GQ. She was fashion editor of The Independent for three years. Her writing career began when she won the Honey Magazine Young Journalist of the Year competition in 1985 and her first published profile was on the legendary Diana Vreeland.
Hume has appeared on television and radio regularly since the 1980s. She was the series consultant for the 1992 BBC six-part series, “The Look” which includes a documentary profile of Yves Saint Laurent. She was the writer and associate producer of The South Bank Show special on John Galliano (1997).
Hume’s speaking assignments have included The National Gallery of Victoria and The Barbican, London. For several years, she chaired the business seminars of Melbourne Fashion Festival with guest speakers including Zandra Rhodes, Jasper Conran, brand director, Jane Shepherdson and Sir George Cox, Chair of the British Design Council. Hume has long been associated with Central St. Martins School of Art where she teaches a couple of sessions each year.
A lifelong activist, in 1988, Hume co-founded Fashion Acts which has raised millions for the fight against AIDS. In 2009, she was appointed an International Consultant to the ITC, which works in partnership with the UN and the WTO to enable small business export success in developing countries. She is a consultant to The Ethical Fashion Programme, based in Geneva and Nairobi, which harnesses the power of fashion as a vehicle out of poverty for some of the world’s poorest people. A graduate of Exeter University, she resides in London with her husband, photographer, Peter Hunt.
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