Anna Wintour: The Vogue editor's legacy, and who might replace her

BBC News

12 hours ago

Dame Anna Wintour had just sent off her first edition of US Vogue in October 1988 when the magazine received a phone call from the printers. They had seen the issue's front cover, and had one question: "Has there been a mistake?"The cover, Dame Anna's first as editor-in-chief, featured a lesser-known model, Michaela Bercu, smiling at the camera in a stylish Christian Lacroix couture jacket.But two things were notably different from usual: the model was standing outside, in the street, and wearing a pair of jeans. The printers half-assumed there had been some kind of error. "I couldn't blame them," Dame Anna later recalled. "It was so unlike the studied and elegant close-ups that were typical of Vogue's covers back then, with tons of makeup and major jewellery. This one broke all the rules."The jeans had, in fact, been a last-minute addition, after the skirt which Bercu was supposed to wear didn't fit properly. But the intended message was clear: the cover star was a regular, everyday girl - and this was a new era for Vogue.
Dame Anna's arrival, and desire to defy convention, "signalled a revolution" at the magazine, according to CNN Style's Oscar Holland, who praised her debut issue as "warm and easygoing". After two years in charge of British Vogue, Dame Anna had been hired for the US edition precisely to shake things up. She was tasked with making sure the magazine didn't lose its edge as it headed towards the 1990s. In the decades since, Dame Anna has "steered the title from glossy print editions featuring first supermodels then grunge, via Noughties celebrity culture and reality TV stars, into an online era of social media and digital publishing," noted the Times' fashion editor Harriet Walker.But this week, Dame Anna announced she would be stepping back as Vogue's editor-in-chief after 37 years. She will remain publisher Condé Nast's chief content officer, a role she was appointed to in 2020, which means she will still oversee Vogue's content, along with the company's other titles such as GQ, Wired and Tatler. But while she may be staying with the company, her departure as editor-in-chief marks the end of an extraordinary era for the magazine, which helped to define pop culture.
Dame Anna will be remembered for "the greater sense of informality that she brought to her early Vogue covers" and the tone they set, says Dr Kate Strasdin, senior lecturer at the Falmouth University's Fashion and Textile Institute."She also pioneered the celebrity cover image, positioning popular culture beneath the famous Vogue banner."In her first year as editor-in-chief, Dame Anna put Madonna on the cover, the first celebrity to have featured, as part of her wider mission to merge the words of fashion and entertainment."She was the first to make fashion a global, cultural industry," Marian Kwei, a stylist and contributor to Vogue, told BBC Radio 4's Today. But, she adds, Dame Anna "also showed that fashion could be more approachable". "She took away the elitism that was in fashion, and brought a democratisation, and made fashion this party that everybody else was invited to."
It hasn't always been smooth sailing, however. In 1993, animal rights group Peta occupied her office in protest over Dame Anna's decision to wear fur, something she no longer does.There were arguably occasional cultural missteps, too. The LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen cover in April 2008 sparked a debate about whether it reinforced old stereotypes of race and power.More recently, Dame Anna faced a much more existential challenge - how to move Vogue into the digital age with hugely increased competition.In 2018, designer Philip Plein compared the number of Vogue's readers with the number of Instagram followers Kim Kardashian had."So what is more important nowadays for a brand?" he asked. "This is an interesting question."
In a fast-moving media landscape, some industry watchers may wonder whether Dame Anna was quietly asked to step down by Conde Nast to make way for fresh blood.But Alexandra Shulman, former editor of British Vogue, said she doubted this, telling BBC News: "I don't think there's any view that a new vision is needed. "Anna's made it perfectly clear that she's remaining in control at American Vogue... so I think she will still have the final say."Shulman added that it was likely Dame Anna herself would choose her successor at Vogue.
'The high priestess of our time'
Dame Anna is as known for her own image as much as the aesthetic she has created in her magazines. Her trademark sunglasses and bobbed haircut are partly what helped her become such an instantly recognisable figure. She told the BBC's Katie Razzall last year, somewhat cryptically, that her sunglasses "help me see and they help me not see... they help me be seen and not be seen".The editor has always been something of an enigma, and will be well aware that the conversation and speculation that surrounds her just fuels the interest further.But she played down the focus on her image, saying: "I don't really think about it. What I'm really interested in is the creative aspect of my job."Her reputation as an editor has, of course, been widely debated, Dr Strasdin notes. "The fashion industry has traditionally been a space where egos and creativity can clash spectacularly," she says, adding that documeantries such as The September Issue and First Monday in May "offer some insight into the strangeness of that world".
Over time, Dame Anna gradually became a significant figure not just in fashion, but western culture. She is regularly referenced in hip-hop lyrics, with Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z and Ye (formerly Kanye West) among the artists who have name-checked her."I believe what she has done," reflected Kwei, "is carved a space in fashion, culture, time, history that we will never be able to outdo".Dame Anna was the loose inspiration for Miranda Priestly, the demon magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada, portrayed on screen by Meryl Streep.The editor has appeared to enjoy occasionally leaning in to the comparison, and last year attended the gala night for the stage adaptation.But asked if she thought people were frightened of her in real life, Dame Anna replied: "I hope not."
Dame Anna's impact can be seen in all kinds of ways, including, for example, at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wedding to Lauren Sánchez in Venice this weekend."She created that moment, and almost created that brand," the former Sun editor David Yelland told the BBC. "It was when she put Lauren Sancehz on the front of Vogue in 2023, that the Bezos/Sanchez brand started. "She did the same with Kim Kardashian and she did the same with the Trumps. When she put Ivana on the front in 1990 it was incredibly controversial, people called it tacky, but that was the beginning of the Trump brand in the higher end of global society. So she's not just an editor, she's the high priestess of our time."
Who could replace Anna Wintour?
The question of Dame Anna's successor is complicated. "This is a challenging era for print media," explains Dr Strasdin. "Vogue's social media platforms are frequently under fire for the seemingly relentless celebrity content which critics decry as diluting the mission of Vogue. "But a strong digital presence is vital. Eva Chen, as director of fashion partnerships for Instagram, brings that expertise. She has long been a Met Gala regular and has to be on the longlist I should think.""Chioma Nnadi must also be in the running," she continues. "She hails from London, and has spent the last two years heading up editorial content at British Vogue. She is Wintour's protege and it does feel as if she has been waiting in the wings."Other possible candidates, according to the Daily Mail's fashion editor Margaret Abrams, include former head of Teen Vogue Amy Astley, who still works for Condé Nast editing another magazine. Vogue's senior editor Chloe Schama, her namesake Chloe Malle, editor of Vogue's website, or even Dame Anna's own daughter, film producer Bee Shaffer Carrozzini, could also be in the frame."As ever fashion is regarded as both superficial and economically valuable," says Dr Strasdin. "Anna Wintour has had to tread the tightrope of maintaining relevance as far as style is concerned at the very same time that fashion has had to undergo re-evaluation in relation to sustainability, plagiarism and labour conditions. "I think these are the very real concerns that her successor will have to navigate."