Anna Wintour steps down from Vogue editorship after 37 years: reports
Anna Wintour, the icy style legend who inspired The Devil Wears Prada, will reportedly step down after nearly 40 years at the helm of Vogue, sending the fashion world into a spin.
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Anna Wintour is stepping down as editor-in-chief of American Vogue after 37 years.
According to Variety and Women’s Wear Daily, the fashion titan told staffers during a meeting on Thursday local time that she was moving aside after nearly four decades in the job.
Wintour announced that Vogue will begin the search for a new head of editorial content but she will remain Condé Nast’s chief content officer as well as global editorial director at Vogue, continuing to oversee the fashion magazine’s worldwide output.
Wintour currently oversees every Condé Nast publication on a global level — with the exception of the New Yorker, which is still headed by David Remnick — including Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, AD, Condé Nast Traveller, Glamour, Bon Appetit, Allure and more.
Wintour has led the US edition of Vogue since 1988, succeeding former editor-in-chief Grace Mirabella. The longtime editor’s first cover — the November 1988 issue — featured Israeli model Michaela Bercu wearing a Christian Lacroix jacket adorned with a beaded cross, paired with stonewashed Guess jeans.
“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 jewelry. This one broke all the rules,” Wintour said in a 2012 post on Vogue’s website. “Afterwards, in the way that these things can happen, people applied all sorts of interpretations: It was about mixing high and low, Michaela was pregnant, it was a religious statement. But none of these things was true. I had just looked at that picture and sensed the winds of change. And you can’t ask for more from a cover image than that.”
Wintour was said to be the inspiration for former Vogue assistant Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 hit book, The Devil Wears Prada. The book was adapted into a film in 2006 and starred Meryl Streep as a demanding and cold fashion editor at the helm of the fictitious Runway magazine.
The film was a global hit and a sequel is in the works.
Wintour has long influenced fashion, with her seal of approval said to “make” careers. She also heads the annual Met Gala, which has been described as the “fashion Oscars” but harder to get into.
Four years ago, Conde Nast changed its editorial structure, bringing together the editorial teams around the world for the first time. Every market where Conde Nast operates has a head of editorial content led by a global editorial director.
The new Vogue US role is part of the company’s organisational design and it will join the heads of editorial content for Japan, China, India, Taiwan, U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Middle East.
Most recently, Conde Nast has been restructuring many of its marquee brands, with Vogue veteran Mark Guiducci taking the helm at Vanity Fair as global editorial director, following the exit of editor-in-chief Radhika Jones.
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