Friends, Family and Colleagues Remember WWD’s Etta Froio at Memorial Service

Friends, colleagues and family gathered to celebrate the life and legacy Thursday of Etta Froio, former senior vice president, executive editor and associate publisher of Fairchild Publications, parent of WWD, who died June 11 at age 94.

Among those who attended the memorial service at Frank E. Campbell — The Funeral Chapel at 1076 Madison Avenue in New York were Ed Nardoza, Bridget Foley, Isaac Mizrahi, Joe Boitano, Jaqui Lividini, Sonja Caproni, Neal Fox, Patti Cohen, Rebecca Moses, Peter Speliopoulos and Kenny Karlstein.

Throughout her long and distinguished career, Froio developed a reputation for her calm, steady authority, her ability to manage the most complex projects and difficult employees with aplomb, and the certainty she provided that everything would be executed smoothly and turn out perfectly. In heading up the coverage of the fashion collections, to which WWD devoted more ink than any other publication, she was like a great wartime general. She retired in 2012.

Both family and colleagues spoke about her generosity, her friendship with every major designer on both sides of the Atlantic, her love of food, cats and fast cars, and a wicked sense of humor and strong tennis game.

Dean Celia, Froio’s nephew, shared his earliest memories of Froio as a mother figure who helped raise him.

“My mother wasn’t able to be there to do the things a mother would do so Etta and her father, my grandfather, stepped in when my dad needed them,” said Celia. He recounted the weekly routine of picking up Froio from the train station when she worked in New York City during the week. As a child of 4 or 5, he would cover himself with a blanket in the backseat and jump up to surprise her, and she always played along with it.

“I couldn’t wait for her to arrive on Friday, and it was always a little sad on Sunday when she had to go back. She always brought friends along,” said Celia. He recalled Froio’s role in celebrating holidays and maintaining family connections, and her generosity and thoughtfulness in organizing family gatherings.

“For years, we would gather in places in New York. Sometimes it was in a well-known place like Tavern on the Green, or the Water Club. Other times, it was just like a place around the corner from her apartment. But no matter where it was, we always had a blast, and we basically took over whatever establishment we were in. And so we’re a big Italian family so they really had no choice,” said Celia.

Gwen Westley Sullivan, former editorial manager of Women’s Wear Daily and W, said Froio was her colleague for 17 years and then her friend. Sullivan recalled on her first day in 1982 when she was working for Michael Coady (chief executive officer and president of Fairchild) she was asked to send flowers to “Ben Bradlee on Staten Island.” As an NYU journalism and politics major, she was very proud that she followed politics and knew Bradlee was the editor of The Washington Post, but she thought it was strange that he lived on Staten Island.

“I tried my best, but couldn’t locate him anywhere,” and she said had to ask Coady again. “Ask Etta, she’ll know where he is,” Coady said, so she went across the room, introduced herself and explained her dilemma. She tersely replied, “’It’s Ben Brantley, not Ben Bradlee.’ She informed me he was at home and gave me his contact information.” She said she was terse that day, but so friendly the days that followed.

Sullivan said they would have frequent takeout lunches in the newsroom, and they’d talk about life and laugh. Perhaps office stuff came up, but it was never the focal point. When WWD moved from Ninth Street to West 34th Street, they sat one foot away from each other and their friendship grew.

She recalled when she and her husband wanted to buy property in the Hamptons, Froio and her friend, Jody Donahue (who died in 2017), mentored them in buying their house in Water Mill. “She was generous with advice and guidance, and what a savvy business person she was. To me, she was mom, big sister, confidant….we bonded over our cats. We talked endlessly about food, indulged in many memorable meals, and introduced each other to new things.

“She would eat with kings, but also enjoy, as I do, the delicious food we grew up with,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan recalled that Froio traveled all over the world, and owned a piece of a winning horse. “She would attend the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont. But of all the places she went to, her lovely house in Southampton was her favorite place on the bay side of Meadow Lane, with a wraparound porch on the water that looked as if you were out to sea. She lived life without fanfare but with tremendous amounts of grace and elegance. Etta’s quiet strength and devotion to family, friends and colleagues made her loved by so many from her assistants at Women’s Wear Daily to the world’s most famous designers. John Fairchild adored her,” said Sullivan.

“Etta was that old-fashioned Italian girl from New Jersey who made it big through talent, hard work, generosity, and a ton of smarts. She enjoyed life’s ride with her family and friends, in particular Martha and Jody. She loved to travel, play tennis, give back to charities. I learned so much from Etta, but you didn’t need to sit down for her to mentor you. All you had to do was watch her, observe her, and you could learn how to conduct yourself.”

Ed Nardoza, former editor in chief of WWD, said, “There’s an old Buddhist notion that if you’re depressed, you’re living in the past. If you’re anxious, you’re living in the future. The point is that the only true reality is the present, and we should all just seize the day. This, in part, explains why I so love being in the presence of Etta Froio. She brought a lightness, a calm, a focus, an openness to any interaction I ever had with her.”

“Not to mention a little high-minded mischief, or sometimes low-minded. Has anyone ever heard her hog call? It was usually after the second vodka on the rocks, but the hog call was operatic. No one seized the day like Etta Froio,” said Nardoza.

He said it was no wonder that John Fairchild formed an immediate alliance with her in 1960, when the Fairchild family “dragged their prodigal son back from his beloved Paris to run the company.” He was going to take a new people-driven, unconventional approach to the news business.

“Mr. Fairchild was going to do what he was going to do, and Etta was game. Her own understated creativity was always there, open to new ideas and new approaches. Together with some of the incredible talent that passed through those doors, they created the golden age of Fairchild Publications,” said Nardoza. “And for all those years, Etta was the civilizing influence in what was often a blast furnace of the newsroom.”

Nardoza noted that Froio had the respect and affection of anyone who worked with her and WWD and W. “And over decades, she held the respect of every major designer in the world for her deep knowledge and incredible taste level. She had an unmatched eye for a beautiful photograph and an editing hand that was the best kind that sharpened the writer’s voice. She never pounded a piece of copy into sounding more like Etta Froio than the reporter she was editing,” he said.

His own experience working with Froio began in 1991 when he made the move from DNR, the men’s publication, to WWD. “At the time, I knew I was out of my depth, especially when it came to the women’s fashion industry, and I suspect Etta knew that as well. But she never once treated me that way, even when I had the temerity to stand up in the fashion department and ask that group of very formidable editors and stylists, ‘What’s a twinset?’

“The credibility I had was shot and dogs me to this day,” said Nardoza.

He recalled that from the start, Froio was sweet and to the point, and said, “I have no ego. Do whatever you have to do.”

It wasn’t long before his free rein got him in big trouble. “Looking to get off on the right foot with the staff — a big mistake for a newly appointed news editor — I was a little loosey-goosey with approving expenses, especially with the fashion staff. Are you listening, Bobbi? [A humorous reference to the late fashion editor Bobbi Queen.]

“Do you really need the gigantic location van? OK. Do you really need a hair person and a makeup artist? OK. Do you really need a car for location scanning? OK. Do you really need a fashion assistant? And the photographer’s assistant? OK. Do you really need several models? OK. Do you really need to feed everybody? OK. I mean, this was Women’s Wear. I guess that’s the way it was done. Word got out that I was an easy mark.”

In his first month, he had burned through at least a fiscal quarter’s worth of expenses. One morning he arrived at his desk and there was one of those famous blue index cards on his phone that he and Froio were to see Mr. Coady.

“Needless to say, Michael was in full-blown torch mode. He really let us have it. More specifically, he really let Etta have it, directing his fierce intensity with her. She sat there quietly, like the grandam she was, taking the hit. And what did I do? Fess up? Get her off the hook? No, I sat there dumb… Not my proudest moment. Etta finally neutralized the situation by saying simply ‘We’ll have to make this up and tighten the budget strings immediately.’ She could have and should have thrown me under the bus. It was this idiot’s fault. She should have said it, but she didn’t. Then I knew I had not only a mentor and protector, but a real friend like one of steel,” said Nardoza.

He said she never got rattled, even at 3 in the morning when they were covering the collections in Paris. “I look back on those layouts of reviews and images of double after double, and they look miraculous to me,” said Nardoza.

“Etta was our quarterback,” said Nardoza. She knew how to put people at ease, staffers on deadlines, designers, executives, you name it.

Nardoza recalled an incident with “one of the most intimidating designers of all, Giorgio Armani,” when he featured exaggerated harem pants in one of his collections. The team figured it was going to be a tough sell at retail, and it was bad.

“We all agreed it was bad, and Patrick [McCarthy]” gave Bridget Foley the green light to say that in her review. He said that some designers like to do drinks, a coffee or maybe a dinner a night or two before their shows. “I always saw that as a form of seduction, but Armani would always arrange for a coffee the morning after his show. You know, when the review had already come out. That wasn’t seduction, that was intimidation.”

They got to his palazzo and established that Patrick and Etta would go first, and Bridget and Ed would go behind them under a cloak of invisibility. “We’re led into Armani’s private office in the back of the palazzo and there’s Giorgio with his ice-blue eyes that could freeze the sun, and he immediately starts talking to Patrick in French. The second he sees Etta, Armani’s whole uptight body language relaxes. She had that effect on him. Air kisses and smiles going around. The meeting took a charming turn, warm and funny. At the very end, Armani turned to Bridget and said, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong about those harem pants.’”

Nardoza recalled when Froio tried to retire, she took Foley and him into the conference room to break the news. “Bridget began sobbing. I felt devastated and we proceeded to explain to Etta that her retirement wasn’t an option.” They bullied her into accepting a part-time position, where she’d work three days a week, take the summers off, and still cover the collections with them. “This was completely bogus. The couture was in July. The ready-to-wear calendar was more and more expansive. Somewhere in the world, there were always fashion shows. And then they needed her input for the Collections magazines. “So she retired and then proceeded to work almost as many days and weeks as before. Were we guilty? Yes. Were we selfish? Yes. Were we relieved? Yes. When she finally did actually retire a few years later, the headline we put on a piece we ran was, ‘Never can say goodbye.’

“Thankfully many of us were able to keep up our cherished friendship, even though our dear friend Etta continued to be absolutely ruthless on the tennis court,” said Nardoza.