Anna Wintour shocked the media and fashion worlds on Thursday when she said she would give up her role as editor of American Vogue. It’s a shift in power, but not the end of her run as the world’s most famous magazine editor.
At Condé Nast, where she has worked since 1983, Ms. Wintour has three jobs. Once she relinquishes the editor in chief title, that role will no long exist.
Instead, a “head of editorial content” — a newly created role at American Vogue — will report directly to her.
Ms. Wintour, 75, will remain Vogue’s global editorial director. She will also remain chief content officer for Condé Nast, overseeing Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ and several more magazines. (The only Condé title she does not oversee is The New Yorker.)
The fervor over Ms. Wintour’s stepping down is a testament to her influence over the fashion world, and her chokehold on the industry rumor mills. Every few years brings a slew of reports about Ms. Wintour’s departure plans and her potential successors.
They have never been accurate. Thursday’s news was also only a half step.
“I wanted to talk to all of you this morning about a pivotal decision that I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” Ms. Wintour told Vogue’s staff Thursday morning, in remarks obtained by The New York Times. She outlined that she would be looking for a head of content for American Vogue but reinforced — in the most Wintour-esque way possible — that she wasn’t going anywhere. This was not a chief executive retiring and joining the board.
“This is my all-in moment at the company,” Ms. Wintour said. “I won’t be moving offices — or a single piece of my Clarice Cliff pottery — and through the years ahead, I’ll be turning all my attention to global leadership and working with our team of brilliant editors around the world, helping to support those editors in every manner possible.”
In other words: Ms. Wintour will remain the most powerful person at Vogue, overseeing all editions, including those published in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and beyond. The head of editorial content will manage the day-to-day operations of American Vogue.
Whoever assumes the job will technically be Ms. Wintour’s successor, but in this role only. The space she occupies in the world will be harder to fill.
The change is in line with a reshuffling that began in 2020. Before then, each international Vogue title had its own esteemed editor in chief and operated more or less independently. Five years ago, when Ms. Wintour took control of these titles as their global editorial director, she replaced their editors with (typically younger) heads of editorial content.
It was seen as a shift away from the impenetrable imperial editor — a relic of “The Devil Wears Prada” days of big budgets and town cars.
More publications at Condé Nast have followed suit in eradicating the editor in chief title. Radhika Jones, who recently left Vanity Fair, was that publication’s last to hold the title. Her replacement, Mark Guiducci, is its first global editorial director.
Jessica Testa covers nontraditional and emerging media for The Times.
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