Estelle Hamburger was born in New York in approximately 1898. She left Barnard College in 1919 to work in the advertising department of Macy's, where she inaugurated a successful career in fashion merchandising. During the 1920s, she was head of promotions at Bonwit Teller and advertising director at Stern's department store before becoming executive vice president of upscale fashion retailer Jay Thorpe in the mid-1930s. In 1941, she established her own fashion merchandising consulting firm, which she led for over three decades. Clients included major department stores across the United States.

A frequent lecturer on fashion and art, Hamburger was a founding member of the influential professional women's organization, the Fashion Group International. She published an instructional memoir, It's a Woman's Business (New York: Vanguard Press, 1939), and encouraged young women to pursue careers in fashion merchandising. She was a faculty member in the Fashion Design Department at Parsons School of Design during the 1972-1973 academic year.

Estelle Hamburger died in New York in 1983.