Fashion’s Formidable First Lady Anna Wintour Steps Back

When Dame Anna Wintour collected her Companion of Honour Award from King Charles this year, he asked her if she was going to retire. Her answer was a clear no; “It makes me even more convinced that I have so much more to achieve”  …

This response seems at odds with her announcement she is stepping back from her editorial duties at Vogue after 37 years. As the most influential woman in fashion, and some would say the magazine’s most controversial editor, Wintour will remain at Condé Nast and Vogue where she retains her title as Vogue’s global editorial director. She is also chief content officer for Condé Nast, overseeing media brands including Condé Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair, GQ and Wired.

In an official statement, she said she will be hiring a new head of editorial content: “I find that my greatest pleasure is helping the next generation of impassioned editors storm the field with their own ideas, supported by a new, exciting view of what a major media company can be. And that is exactly the kind of person we need to now look for to be HOEC for US Vogue.”

To insiders, however, the decision to step back has been brewing. After all, Wintour has weathered several storms over the last few years. Most recently, the appointment of Mark Guidicci as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair sparked a backlash. Guidicci is a friend of Wintour’s daughter, Bee Schaffer Carrozzini, and his appointment bemused and blindsided staff. 

There was also the rather lukewarm response to this year’s Met Gala, the annual fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, and one of Wintour’s pet projects. Also known as “fashion’s biggest night out” it was noticeable that many celebrities and fashion designers – including Sarah Jessica Parker, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez – swerved this year’s event.

During the recent US elections too, Vogue came under fire for its lack of editorial objectivity – certainly there have been no cover stories or features on First Lady Melania Trump, a privilege awarded to her predecessors. Wintour is a longstanding Democrat and noted party fundraiser who was actively involved in supporting candidates from Hillary Clinton to Kamala Harris (there were rumours that she coveted an ambassadorial role in Paris).  

Vogue was also criticised for its lack of staff diversity, an issue Wintour addressed personally. In 2020, she acknowledged the magazine’s past failures and took full responsibility for racial inequality, stating; “It can’t have been easy to be a Black employee at Vogue.”

I doubt that it was easy for anyone. Her management style – aloof yet controlling – resulted in her nickname “Nuclear Wintour” and was the subject of bestselling novel The Devil Wears Prada, written by her former assistant Lauren Weisberger. In the film adaptation, Meryl Streep plays the icy Miranda Priestley, editor of fictional Runway magazine. Wintour’s reaction; “It was entertainment. It was not a true rendition of what happens within this magazine.”

Nothing, not even Streep’s acclaimed performance, can detract from Wintour’s remarkable legacy. She has shaped what we buy and how we dress since she was appointed editor-in-chief of British Vogue in the 1980s. When she joined American Vogue in 1988, her first issue featured model Michaela Bercu wore a Christian Lacroix sweater with Guess jeans. This caused a stir about what comprised “high fashion”.

Mixing high street and designer fashion was one of the many ways she modernised the fashion bible (seen in the popular editorials More Dash Than Cash). She championed emerging designers including Jonathan Anderson, and Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez (of Proenza Schouler), and remained loyal to others, notably John Galliano. In recent years, she broadened Vogue’s scope, reflecting her interest in cultural issues and cultural icons. As a result, reality stars and musicians such as Kim Kardashian and Rihanna replaced supermodels and fashion royalty on Vogue’s iconic covers. 

Wintour’s reign has been the subject of many books, including Amy Odell’s Anna: The Biography, or Kitty Kelley’s unauthorised biography, which are riveting reads. As a result, we know her morning routine – she starts the day early with a game of tennis  before having her famous bob hairstyle blowdried. In The Chiffon Trenches, a memoir by the former Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley, described her as “ruthless” and “not capable of kindness”. In the end, I think that it reflected badly on André rather than on Anna.