Many designers wouldn’t dare start their shows until Anna Wintour had taken her seat.ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
After 37 long and colourful years establishing herself as the distinctive face and force of fashion’s bible, Anna Wintour is relinquishing her editor-in-chief role at American Vogue. But while the world’s most powerful woman in publishing may be abandoning her day-to-day duties, she’s definitely not letting go of her reins. She continues her mega-gigs as global editorial director of all 28 international editions of Vogue and chief content officer for all Condé Nast publications (except The New Yorker), a job she took on five years ago.
Though many fashion insiders feel that Wintour’s retreat from her editor-in-chief duties was a long time coming, the news immediately had tongues wagging over who her replacement might be. Interestingly though, the old title is being dissolved altogether, with the magazine now seeking to fill the position with a “head of editorial content”– a kind of glorified underling to Wintour I suppose, one who will still ultimately answer to the big boss herself.
I first met Wintour in 1988, at the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards. We were in the crowded lobby of the New York Public Library when a PR person introduced me to her. “She’s just come over from London, where she was editing House & Garden,” he told me excitedly. “And now she’ll be taking over Vogue!” I was immediately taken with the fabulous frock Wintour was wearing: a sparkly, multicoloured, striped minidress with a skirt of white marabou feathers. “Oh I love your dress!” I gushed. “Thank you,” she replied with a warm smile. “It’s vintage Geoffrey Beene.”
It was a brief but cordial encounter, and l remember thinking she was so incredibly cool – and smart – for choosing to wear a vintage piece by one of the most genius designers in the U.S. That was my first taste of Wintour’s exquisite fashion savvy. When her first Vogue cover hit the stands, featuring a bold Christian Lacroix top paired with faded denim, I sensed she’d struck gold, celebrating fashion’s hi-lo mix in a youthful, irreverent way.
It was an attitude many of us were ready for, though she faced criticism from some for giving the magazine that more youthful look. Though the legendary Diana Vreeland, who was Vogue’s editor-in-chief during the “youthquake” of the rebellious sixties, paid great homage to the revolutionary spirit of her times, her successor from 1971 to 1988, Grace Mirabella, had a more utilitarian approach to fashion, and some felt that the magazine lacked its previous avant-garde spirit because of it.
Wintour’s new approach was unapologetically forward and young. “I think if you’re interested in fashion, you’re interested in fashion,” Wintour defensively told me in 1992, explaining that great style should not be defined by age. “I always say I defy anyone to find a woman who wants to look old.”
Under her new leadership, Vogue became the modern authority on what would, or wouldn’t be in, with its dynamic editor wielding the power to make or break a designer. “One is weaned on Vogue,” American designer Marc Jacobs told me early on in his career. “If Vogue says it’s okay, then it’s okay.” He also shared with me how terrified he was the first time Wintour visited him at his showroom for her measurements to be taken. Lucky for him, he became one of her darlings and she helped champion his efforts in becoming one of the most beloved designers of the 2010s.
She did the same for European designers such as Gianni Versace, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, despite the fact that McQueen cheekily locked her out of his first New York show because of her late arrival. Slowly but surely, everyone on the scene began to feel the weight of her importance. Most designers wouldn’t dare start their shows until Wintour had taken her seat. But despite the frustration and impatience of the audience, we accepted it. After all, she was doing so much for the scene, catapulting American design and the fashion industry at large to new heights. And her mighty magazine commanded everyone’s respect.
What some consider to be fashion’s “golden age”– the nineties and the early 2000s – was a dizzying time. Unbridled artistry was in the air as the designers pushed boundaries and the editors told edgy, inspiring stories. The supermodels were in their heyday and the photographers captured them in a brilliant new light.
As the host and segment producer of Fashion Televison, my crew and I delighted in the frenzy of covering this lush and explosive time in fashion. However, I can’t say I felt our video efforts were appreciated by the likes of Wintour and her team. Despite her co-operation in providing soundbites every now and then, and even though Vogue did a large, lovely spread on me and Fashion Television in the early nineties, I always felt Wintour was somehow looking down her nose at the way we covered fashion as entertainment.
According to Vogue, fashion had always been a big, serious business. In TV, there wasn’t much room for intellectualizing or providing astute critiques. And maybe – just maybe – Wintour felt the print platform was being threatened by this feisty new player. Television was more immediate and it was certainly popularizing the fashion arena in powerful, appealing, new ways.
Still, being editor-in-chief of a successful fashion glossy was just about the sexiest, most respected and coveted gig going in the industry. And Wintour, whose own personal brand had become synonymous with Vogue, seemed to be lapping it up. The culture of celebrity had also been growing to monstrous heights, and Wintour was forever sitting in front rows with a variety of megastars and regularly featuring them on her covers. Madonna was the first celebrity to land a cover with Wintour in 1989.
Wintour also used her star connections to help stage the annual Met Gala – a grandiose affair that has raised hundreds of millions for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is now known as fashion’s biggest night. You could say Wintour worked her way into becoming fashion’s brightest star, always wielding more and more power, coddling the careers of countless designers and advising the likes of the world’s biggest fashion mogul, Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of luxury-brand powerhouse LVMH.
But nothing lasts forever in this life, and the changes in fashion, the economy and the media started to catch up with the magazine business. The lustre of being an editor-in-chief was also waning. For all those who’ve been in the business – I had the privilege of holding an editor-in-chief position from 2003 to 2009 with Canada’s FQ and Sir magazines – the work is extremely taxing, with untold grit behind the glamour.
By the end of the aughts, the printed page, which was the ultimate luxury to some, was increasingly being challenged by the digital screen. Fashion reportage became commonplace, giving rise to disparate new fashion voices and style sensibilities. Advertising dollars were dwindling when it came to supporting hard copy magazines. Purse strings were being pulled on what were once seemingly unlimited budgets for shooting glorious fashion editorials.
Fashion houses were also losing some of their rock-star designers, as brands scrambled to reinvent themselves. Sustainability was entering the fashion fray and people began questioning the industry’s values and the age of opulent excess that we were living in. But Wintour was determined to hold on to her well-earned influence and Condé Nast indulged her with the mind-boggling mega-gig she has today – one that she apparently has no intention of giving up.
In February of this year, when Wintour, looking smashing in an elegant Alexander McQueen ensemble, received the Companion of Honour medal from King Charles III, she was asked whether the honour meant she would be slowing down. “No,” she firmly replied, later telling BBC news, “It makes me even more convinced that I have so much more to achieve.”
At 75, Wintour is evidently as passionate as ever about making her influence felt in ways that go far beyond mere star-making and the dictates of silhouettes and hemlines. She’s proof positive that the older we get, the better we can get. We only need to keep our minds open and have faith in the shape of things to come.
In a statement to Vogue staff last week, she proclaimed that her greatest pleasure now is “helping the next generation of impassioned editors storm the field with their own ideas.” And just as she once proved that there was a new way to imagine an American fashion magazine, Wintour is putting her faith in younger, big thinkers to play with a variety of platforms for telling stylish stories and seducing our sartorial sensibilities in brave and unconventional ways.
