A woman with a bob cut wearing oversized sunglasses sits in the front row of nearly every major fashion show.
She is of course the iconic Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine.
For nearly four decades, Wintour has been at the helm of US Vogue. On Thursday, she announced that she would no longer run the day-to-day editing of the fashion bible.
But this does not mean retirement for the 75-year-old British style mogul.
Conde Nast, the magazine group owner, confirmed that she would continue to hold senior roles at the group and remain Vogue‘s global editorial director.
Wintour has not only influenced how people dress in the US, she has also had a hand in shaping globally, including in Africa and India.
Of course, her ongoing legacy is not without criticism.
Is Wintour really ‘the devil wearing Prada’?
Speculation abounds as to whether the heartless antagonist in the 2006 film, “The Devil Wears Prada” — and the book of the same name written by Wintour assistant, Lauren Weisberger — was directly inspired by the Vogue editor-in-chief.
In the movie, a ruthless fashion boss, played by Meryl Streep, terrorizes her employees.
While Wintour herself labeled the book and the movie “fiction,” a 2022 biography by Amy Odell confirms that the fashionista had an assistant responsible for making sure her daily breakfast of extra-hot grande Starbucks latte and blueberry muffin was waiting on her desk.
Whatever the veracity of the claim that Wintour was more than just a loose inspiration for the hit film, the character did reflect the Vogue chief’s ability to reign over the fashion world.
Nearly 40 years as Vogue boss
Wintour was born into a well-off family in London in 1949. Her father, an editor of the London Evening Standard daily newspaper, helped her land her first job at Harpers & Queen magazine as a fashion assistant at the age of 20.
She eventually moved to City with her then-partner and continued to climb the editorial ladder at a number of publications.
In 1988 she was offered the position at US Vogue. When Wintour took the helm of the famous fashion magazine, its advertising revenue was threatened by a new women’s lifestyle magazine, Elle.
Yet thanks to Wintour, Vogue carved its own niche and came out on top.
The publication moved away from only featuring models on the cover. Prominent women in politics and Hollywood such as and Hillary Clinton soon had star billing.
Vogue covers have since featured men like Timothée Chalamet and even prominent activists such as transgender activist Ariel Nicholson.
And who can forget about The Vice-President-elect’s portrait was criticized for featuring her casually dressed, claiming it diminished her achievements, forcing editor Anna Wintour to defend the image. A second, more formal, cover shot was also produced for the digital version of the magazine.
Wintour helped the magazine’s parent company, Conde Nast, launch a number of spinoff magazines, including Teen Vogue which hit shelves in 1993.
She also made a name for the magazine by associating it with a number of high-end philanthropic events in Manhattan, most notably the which she helped transform into a star-studded celebrity event known as the East Coast’s answer to the .
Wintour is lauded for her ability to mix the fashion world with Hollywood, helping fashion designers and brands reach the public.
Wintour makes Vogue a global brand
The original US edition of Vogue was first published in 1892, with the British edition coming next in 1916.
Currently, there are over 28 international editions of Vogue magazine. The expansion of the brand has shaped the global fashion scene.
Wintour’s editorial decisions have played a role in how the magazines operate in their respective countries.
The launch of Vogue Africa in 2021 helped bring into the international spotlight.
Meanwhile, Vogue India launched in 2007 under Wintour’s personal guidance.
The Indian edition has since helped position the country as a major player in the fashion industry, promoting the merging of traditional Indian attire with contemporary styles.
Not doing enough for diversity
Yet Wintour’s reign is not without controversy.
US Vogue has been accused of under-representing people of color and of not doing enough to celebrate diversity in the notoriously privileged and snobby world of fashion.
The industry, like others, has been called upon to be more inclusive, particularly since the murder of in 2020.
Vogue has made more of an effort to put Black women like the pop singer Rihanna and former First Lady Michelle Obama on the cover in recent years, and Wintour herself put out a statement supporting the .
But critics also said that Wintour had the power to do a lot more.
A study by digital media outlet “The Pudding” found that between 2000 and 2005, only three out of 81 models on the covers of Vogue were Black.
A 2020 New York Times article about Conde Nast detailed the experiences of Black former employees.
Among other grievances, they said they “faced ignorance and lazy stereotyping from white bosses when the subject of covering Black culture came up.”
Critiques of Vogue aren’t left simply to the US magazine that Wintour runs. After all, she is responsible for overseeing all international content.
A 2022 cover of British Vogue featuring nine models from Africa came under fire for upholding western beauty ideals and fetishizing Blackness — all models were wearing western-style hairdos, and their skin was said to be edited to be darker.
A Trump ban from Met Gala?
Another recent headline-grabbing incident concerns the fashion mogul’s role as longtime co-chair of the prestigious Met Gala, the annual haute couture fundraising festival held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in Manhattan.
Ahead of the , a video started circulating on social media, seemingly showing Wintour explaining why she had “permanently removed” Donald Trump from the Met Gala invitation list, because he “never truly belonged” and she didn’t “want this most sacred night in the fashion world to be reduced to someone’s political show.”
But the video was found to be a deepfake, combining altered footage from an authentic Vogue interview with an AI-generated voice.
As a guest at “The Late Late Show with James Corden” in 2017, Wintour did however name the US president as a person she would “never invite back” to the prestigious event.
Update: A previous version his article was published on November 4, 2024 for Anna Wintour’s 75th birthday. It was updated following the news she was stepping down from her editor’s position.
The post ‘Vogue’ editor Anna Wintour: Her iconic and controversial moments appeared first on Deutsche Welle.
