Jack Edwards began his career attending Penn State and Ithaca College, Ithaca N.Y. and graduating with a degree in fine arts. He spent 17 years working in New York City where he designed one Broadway show, and numerous off-Broadway shows. His first professional job was working as an assistant designer on Richard Burtons Hamlet in 1964. He worked in retail and wholesale fashion design, and had his own fashion company in which he designed for such opera stars as Shirley Verrett, Martina Arroyo, Mildred Miller and Montserrat Cabelle. While in New York City he also spent some time teaching at the Polakov Studio of Stage Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology. He later spent a year in Hollywood where he was a free-lance assistant on television shows such as "The Carol Burnett Show" and "The Jim Nabors Show".

He spent time teaching and designing at the University of Hawaii before moving to Minneapolis to create designs for the Children's Theater, the Minnesota Opera, the Minnesota Ballet, and the Minnesota Dance Theatre. Among others he designed two ballets for the Banff Centre for Continuing Education in Canada. He has also designed for the Santa Fe Opera and the American Shakespeare Theatre. He began working as a costume designer at the Guthrie in 1971, Edwards was involved in as many as five plays a year. He is well known for his costumes on A Christmas Carol, and On the Verge. Most recently Edwards has been designing for the Holidazzle parade in downtown Minneapolis, and Dayton's[currently Macy's] Holiday show .