What happens when you’ve ascended to the most prestigious job in your field, only to have your larger-than-life mentor and predecessor still working down the hall?
That’s the new normal for Chloe Malle, who took over for Anna Wintour as editor of American Vogue in September. Her first print issue will hit newsstands on Feb. 24.
Yet Ms. Wintour is far from retired. Her name still appears on the top of Vogue’s masthead as its global editorial director; she still reigns from her corner office, with those sunglasses and that bob, as Condé Nast’s chief content officer.
Ms. Wintour and Ms. Walle sat in that office last week for their first joint interview, cutting a stark but careful contrast.
Ms. Wintour, 76, is known for her sharp opinions, delivered with authority and brevity. Her public persona is not remotely casual.
Ms. Malle, 40, wears more of herself on her sleeve. She is enthusiastic about her obsessions and open about her anxieties.
“I don’t want the fact that I may be editing Vogue now to mean that I’m someone who’s intimidating to talk to at kindergarten drop-off,” Ms. Malle said, as her famously intimidating boss sat beside her. “That’s just not who I am.”
Their interview also stands in contrast to the more brutal Condé Nast of yesteryear, when outgoing editors learned of their firings on the evening news and incoming editors tried to banish the memories of their predecessors.
Major changes that Ms. Malle has overseen at Vogue, so far, include a reduction of print issues to eight per year, from 10, newly printed on thicker paper in the hope of making the magazine more of a collectible item. Teen Vogue was also downsized and folded into Vogue’s website.
Ms. Malle’s editorial sensibility has gradually emerged: cheeky but intellectual, a little more peculiar than past iterations. She has ordered up a photo shoot of jewelry on New York City bodega cats and organized a Vogue book club for “Wuthering Heights.” In her first print issue, she included seven dogs and a mule named Twinkie, and wrote of being inspired by Ms. Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus.”
“Chloe is her own person,” said Ms. Wintour, who encouraged Ms. Malle to lean into “the weird dogs.” (Ms. Malle, as the editor of Vogue.com, previously conceived a project called Dogue.) “She’s going to put her own stamp on Vogue. And, yes, it will take a little time, but she is not A.W.-lite in any way. And that’s not what we wanted.”
Jessica Testa covers nontraditional and emerging media for The Times.
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