Jane Larkworthy, a veteran beauty writer and top-ranking editor during “The Devil Wears Prada” era of influential print fashion magazines, died on Wednesday at her home in New Marlborough, Mass. She was 62.

Her sister, Kate Larkworthy, said the cause was breast cancer.

Ms. Larkworthy’s work began appearing in magazines in the mid-1980s; her first job was at Glamour, followed by a stint at Mademoiselle. By 1997, she was the beauty director of Jane, a popular magazine aimed at young women. (It was named after another journalist Jane — Jane Pratt.)

Later moving on to W magazine, Ms. Larkworthy became its executive beauty director. She was active online, too, writing for websites like Air Mail and New York magazine’s The Cut, where for a time she was beauty editor at large.

Ms. Larkworthy looked the part of an editor at a glossy fashion magazine, the kind satirized in the 2006 movie “The Devil Wears Prada,” with her straight long hair in a refined shade of celebrity-colorist-applied straw and, more often than not, polished outfits that might have well brought Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy to mind.

But while her fields of expertise might seem superficial, her views on fillers and face creams were infused with industry knowledge and a large dose of well-grounded skepticism.