Anna Wintour. The devil wears Prada. Anna Wintour's style How does Anna Wintour look at the sea

Celebrity biographies

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23.02.15 16:46

Anna Wintour is called one of the most stylish women on the planet, they listen to her opinion, they fear, hate, adore the famous editor - a strong personality causes strong feelings in people! The biographies of Anna Wintour can be envied, because she herself paved her way in the changing world of fashion, and no one is able to remove this goddess from her throne.

Biography of Anna Wintour

In honor of grandmother

With her parents, she, of course, was lucky - the editor of the influential metropolitan newspaper ("The Evening Standard") was a commander of the Order of the British Empire, her mother came from the family of a Harvard professor. Eleanor and Charles lived together for 39 years, and then decided to leave. After nine years of marriage, their daughter Anna was born in 1949. It happened on November 3rd. Eleanor named her daughter after her mother - Anna Baker was the daughter of an American merchant.

The obstinate Anna Wintour hated the school uniform, constantly shortening and improving it, therefore she was known as a rebel. As a teenager, she once and for all chose a haircut (long "bob"), for more than half a century without cheating on her. She loved giving advice to her father - 15-year-old Anna had her own perspective on journalism. The girl just wanted a solid publication to be popular with her peers. Anna was expelled from school, and she was not going to go to college, but was a bit like classes at Harrods.

Huge ambition and impeccable taste

Studying abhorred Wintour, even then the British was confident in her abilities. “In order not to notice the fashion trends in the 1960s, you had to walk around London with a bag on your head,” she once admitted. Having impeccable taste and great ambitions, the girl managed to get a job in the new edition of Harper s & Queen (the magazine was born thanks to the merger of the British Harper's Bazaar and Queen magazine). She took the position of assistant editor of the fashion department and very soon was able to become a deputy editor-in-chief.

When Anna did not get along with the new boss (Wintour dreamed of "hooking up" the boss), she decided to go to the States. It was an abrupt change in the biography of Anna Wintour! After settling in New York, she again ended up in Harper's Bazaar. But here, too, the self-confident Briton did not come to court. After changing several jobs, she was very warmly received in the New York magazine. Becoming the favorite of the editor, 31-year-old Wintour implements all the most daring ideas and earns points in her favor. As a result, she was noticed by the director of a large publishing house Alex Lieberman, after which Anna received the position of creative director of Vogue magazine.

Ardent perfectionist

In the new post, Wintour was again uncompromising and creative, which not everyone liked. It is worth remembering the film The Devil Wears Prada, based on the bestseller of the same name. It was Anna Wintour who became the prototype of the central heroine - authoritarian editor Miranda Priestley. Words are superfluous - we have all seen this movie!

The fame of the formidable Anna spread far beyond the United States. The owners of "Vogue" did not want to lose such a competent leader, as they did not want to part with the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Grace Mirabella. There was a "Solomon solution": Wintour was offered to head the London "Vogue".

"Nuclear winter"

Having come to "absolute power" in 1986, Anna radically changed the concept of her newly-made brainchild. She fought against those who disagreed and "eliminated" those who were too stubborn, completely controlled the entire creative process and delved into the smallest nuances. Having become a kind of dictator, the editor received the "title" of "Nuclear Winter".

But two years later she achieved her goal - having triumphantly returned to America, Anna received the coveted post, because she had long mentioned to Mirabella that she wanted her place in the magazine! Since then, the biography of Anna Wintour has been the path of the US Vogue to perfection. Under her leadership, the publication has become the most influential of those that write about fashion. Gradually, the staff of the editorial board was completely renewed - it was Anna who acted with her "iron" hand.

Lost your grip?

2008 became a kind of milestone for Wintour. On the one hand, Queen Elizabeth II recognized the editor's merits with the same award that was once presented to Charles Wintour - Anne received the Order of the British Empire. On the other hand, the April issue of the magazine was criticized (the publication was accused of racism only because the cover was decorated with a photo of Gisele Bundchen and the famous basketball player LeBron James). Subsidiaries of Vogue either ceased to exist altogether, or their editions were reduced. And in December, there was a new scandal: Jennifer Aniston criticized her rival from the pages of the magazine, which caused the anger of the offended Jolie.

Gossip went - they say, "Nuclear Winter" will soon say goodbye to its warm armchair, Karin Roitfeld or Alena Doletskaya was predicted to be her successor. But Anna, accused of losing her former grip, was not going to lose power, which she announced at the beginning of 2009. Since then, her position has been unshakable. It is to Anna that many celebrities owe their careers: from the photographer Helmut Newton to the model Kate Bosworth. Wintour is a good friend and advisor to many fashion designers, for example, the legendary Lagerfeld.

Personal life of Anna Wintour

Useful acquaintances

From her youth Anna knew how to make useful contacts and make friends with the "necessary" men. This relationship did not always turn into a novel, and Anna Wintour's personal life was most often reflected in the tabloids with some exaggeration.

In her youth, she had a serious relationship with a fellow journalist. It was John Bradshaw who was Anna's mainstay when she left London. Thanks to his connections, she got her first positions. She was very upset by breaking up with him, and she got married only at 34 years old.

Fifteen year marriage

Anna's husband was another longtime acquaintance of hers, David Schaeffer (he worked in child psychiatry). They lived for 15 years. In the marriage, Anna Wintour's children were born - Charles, born in 1985, and Catherine (she is two years younger than her brother). In 1999, there were rumors that Wintour had a lover - Texas investor Shelby Brian. She did not comment on the vicissitudes of the divorce proceedings, but it was not easy for Nuclear Winter. Although Anna Wintour's children were already old enough, she was afraid that the breakup of her parents would hurt them. Now Katherine "B" Schaeffer is mom's best friend, they often attend fashion shows together.

"Iron" routine

After the divorce, Anna Wintour's personal life was not marked by scandals or high-profile novels. She still wakes up at dawn, puts herself in the hands of a hairdresser and make-up artist, and does not forget to wear unchanged sunglasses before leaving the house (for some reason, it is obligatory from the brand "Chanel").

No “greens” will force the stubborn woman to give up chic fur things (Anna has been criticized more than once for this, but how can you shake her opinion?). The editor of "Vogue" attends receptions fleetingly, does not drink alcohol, and hangs up at the grand lady at 22 o'clock. After all, tomorrow you need to again become the most stylish woman on the planet!

One of the most influential figures in the world of modern fashion and the permanent editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Anna Wintour, turns 64 today. During her career, Anna has reached incredible heights, and a huge number of legends and rumors have appeared around her name. "Iron Lady Vogue" turned the fashion world upside down and irrevocably subdued it. Today we decided to recall 10 interesting facts from her life.

1. When Anna was ten years old, when filling out a school questionnaire, she had a question about her future profession, and her father, editor-in-chief of the English tabloid Evening Standard Charles Wintour, advised her: "Write that you want to become a Vogue editor!" Coincidence or mysticism, no one knows, but the phrase from the school questionnaire has become a reality!

She wears the same shoes for several years and hates bags.

2. Wintour has her own recognizable style. Her haircut has not changed for 25 years (every day a professional stylist who comes home in the morning does her styling). She wears the same shoes for several years and hates bags, appearing in public only with a diary, phone and Chanel sunglasses.

3. The editor-in-chief leads a correct lifestyle - her whole day is scheduled strictly by the clock. She does not drink alcohol and loves avocado (if it is not on the restaurant menu, the staff have to twist themselves to provide Anna with her favorite treat).

4. Despite the fact that the schedule of shows for fashion weeks is drawn up for six months, in 2001 the Paris week had to be shortened by 2 days due to the fact that Wintour did not want to stay in Paris for too long. As a result, the defile started every day at 8.45 am (instead of the usual afternoon) and did not start until Anna took a seat in the hall, and she could be a little late.

5. In his youth, Wintour had a scandalous affair (which lasted only a few weeks) with the legendary singer Bob Marley. Rumor has it that Anna even ran away from home, forgetting about her then boyfriend John Bradshaw.

Rumor has it that Anna even ran away from home, forgetting about her then boyfriend John Bradshaw.

6. Anna Wintour is the prototype of Miranda Priestley, the protagonist of Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada. Weisberger was the editor's personal assistant for some time, so the image of Miranda, who, incidentally, was played by Meryl Streep in the film adaptation, is literally copied from Anna. In real life, the Vogue editor, like Miranda Priestley, ends the conversation with an unceremonious "And that's all." By the way, the goddess of fashion did not comment on this film in any way, but at the premiere she appeared from head to toe in Prada.

7. Wintour has always been passionate about the search for new talent, thanks to her stars Oscar de la Renta, Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Takun and Alexander Wong lit up. Photographer Patrick Demarchelier and actress Kate Bosworth got a ticket to the world of show business, and she helped Michael Kors and Marc Jacobs accelerate their career.

8. The editor-in-chief of Vogue has always had many ill-wishers, for example, animal activists declared her their enemy for promoting natural fur. Once, when Anna was leaving the Chanel show, PETA activists threw a cake in her face. "Wear more fur!" - I heard her exclamation from under the layer of cream.

9. In the Vogue editorial staff there are strict rules created by Wintour. Younger employees should not give a voice until they are addressed by older ones (it is forbidden to even greet the first). You can't eat at work, all employees must dress in the style of the magazine itself, and God forbid someone to get fat! One day, Wintour stumbled and sprawled in the hallway - an employee who was painfully indifferent as he walked past her, later received a couple of commendable remarks.

She was fired from Harper's Bazaar for overstepping boundaries.

10. She was fired from Harper's Bazaar for overstepping all boundaries by shooting couture collections on models with dreadlocks. “It was too much for them,” Anna later said, and in another interview with one publication she said: “ I advise everyone to get fired. It's a great experience. "

British journalist Anna Wintour began writing about fashion in 1970. In 1983 she joined the American version of Vogue magazine and since 1988 she has been the head of one of the most popular fashion magazines in the United States. Since 2013, she has been combining this position with the position of artistic director at the publishing house Condé Nast, and in July 2014 she also became the chief editor of the holding. Wintour is ranked 39th on Forbes' list of Most Powerful Women. She became the prototype for the protagonist in the novel and film The Devil Wears Prada. Wintour is a supporter of President Obama, she participated in fundraising for his campaign. She has featured photos of Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama on the covers of Vogue.

It is very important to be able to take risks. It's good to do some research, of course, but the end result is that you still have to rely on instincts and feelings and take risks fearlessly. When I hear that the company is run by a team, my heart sinks because it must be led by a leader with his own vision and courage.

I need strong personalities.

I do not like employees who will agree with everything that I offer. I'm looking for people who know how to argue and argue, have their own point of view, which is reflected in the magazine. My father believed in personalities. He invited great writers and columnists to write for the Evening Standard. And I try to do the same in my magazine.

I am a very determined person. I think it really helps the people you work with that you are able to make decisions.

You have to love what you do. Don't just think it's cool, but really believe in it. I grew up with an absolute belief in the importance of journalism and communication, and I truly love the printed word. I really respect the talented people with whom I work, because they are the best in their field and are not indifferent to their work.

I worked for the American editorial office of Harper's Bazaar ... they fired me. I advise everyone to be fired, it's a very instructive experience.

Mrs. Obama loves fashion. She is not afraid of her, like some of the inhabitants of Washington. She believes, as we do at Vogue, that being an independent, working woman doesn't mean walking around with a paper bag on her head. ... We have always felt that Washington is looking down on us, does not understand us or is not ready to accept us, and now we have the power that supports us.

I don't see myself as a powerful person. After all, what does this mean? You get the best seats in restaurants or tickets to premieres or whatever. But the position provides excellent opportunities to help others, and this is very nice.

I like it when young assistants work in my office; they have a lot of energy and I spend time with them so that they understand what we are doing. By investing in them, I am investing in the magazine.

Let the last word be mine, but I listened to all opinions. And this is very important to me. I don't like people who are insecure or afraid to speak up. I don't think anyone is interested in this.

There is nothing special about strong women. There are often stereotypes about women. I have never heard men talked about in the same way. This is more of a sexist stereotype than an attitude towards powerful people.

My business energizes me. And I am very reckless. I love people who represent the very best in their field. And if that makes me a perfectionist, then I'm a perfectionist.

Find a job. Whether you work as a clothing designer or work part-time in a restaurant to do your job in your free time, these are everyday details. In any case, it is good for you and for others.

It reassures and reassures employees when they see that the manager knows what they are doing, knows what they are thinking. And if he says yes, that is yes, and if he says no, that is not. I don't see a boss in me. I believe that I am sending subordinates, aiming them at work.

I make decisions all day. I don't believe in long notes and endless discussions. I believe that if my employees are always above your heart and cannot decide anything, this greatly interferes with work.

Even if I'm not quite sure, I pretend that I know exactly what I'm talking about and make a clear decision.

"I can't imagine anything better than Vogue"
Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour - editor-in-chief of the number 1 fashion magazine in the world, a role model for the editors of all other magazines; sinless to the point that she is called "the devil", calm to the point that she is called a "bitch". She has been compared to Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis and Catherine the Great; she is an icon for those who dream of success, an ideal woman of the XXI century - without fear, reproach, age and feelings.

No, really, if you figure out what this elderly lady still takes, it turns out: the fact that nothing takes her. Anna Wintour is a cyborg, the latest achievement of Japanese programmers or British geneticists, a woodcutter, whatever you want. Being the empress of modern fashion for almost 20 years, Wintour did not fall prey to side effects: she didn’t get fat, didn’t surround herself with dozens of favorites, doesn’t stay up late at social parties, didn’t move her mind - sheer “not” And only one “but”. But how? Miracle. Secret. Authority. “She is the scariest woman in the whole world,” said one Italian designer. For Americans, the expression "Vogue" means "Wintour" a long time ago. And being in this style is much more important than having a new dress from Prada (although one thing implies another), because any ambitious person hungry for a place in the sun is so uncomfortable and so unnecessary to be human.

Anna Wintour was born in London on November 3, 1949. Her mother, Eleanor, the daughter of a Harvard professor, was engaged in social activities. Father, Charles Wintour, was the editor of the London newspaper The Evening Standard. Little Anna doted on him and could not understand why in journalistic circles her kind and gentle daddy was called "Cold Charles". If she knew in advance that she herself would become the owner of such flattering nicknames as "kitchen scissors" or "unusually glamorous insect", then she probably would have worried much less.
Young Wintour was often reproached for her excessive enthusiasm for her own person. My father was the first to see a professional perspective in this hobby. When Anna was ten years old and the question of the school questionnaire about her future profession puzzled her, Charles advised: "Write that you want to become a VOGUE editor." This is exactly what she did. I mean, she wrote that she would definitely become a VOGUE editor, and eleven years later she took the first step up the career ladder of the haute couture world. In 1970, having decided not to go to college, Wintour got a job as an assistant in the fashion department at the British Harper's Bazaar.A couple of years later she was already deputy editor, in 1976 - the fashion editor of the American Harper's Bazaar, and in 1983 - the creative director of American VOGUE.
At that time, the main fashion magazine was going through its "beige years". A caustic, but extremely accurate metaphor: the walls in the office of the then editor Grace Mirabella were beige, boring and conservative - the pages of the flagship of world fashion. The management appreciated the efforts of Wintour in the position of creative director and guessed about her ambitions, but they did not dare to part with Mirabella, who spent 17 years at the helm. To avoid misunderstandings, Wintour was even sent to England, where she was entrusted with the leadership of British VOGUE and House & Garden magazine. She immediately renamed the latter H&G, diluting boring interiors with models in designer clothes and photographs of celebrities. The result exceeded all expectations: the editors were forced to allocate a separate line to cope with calls from indignant readers.
Innovation fell on bad soil, but Wintour only benefited from it. By shaking up House & Garden, she proved she could breathe new life into the magazine that needed it most. In 1988, Grace Mirabella was removed from the post of editor-in-chief of American VOGUE, Anna Wintour triumphantly ascended the podium.
The VOGUE revolution began with a thorough "facelift": the ranks of the same type of blondes pushed new heroines - Cheryl Tiggs, Patty Hansen, Kim Alexis. They began to focus directly on the model's body, and studio photographs, traditional for glossy covers, were actually supplanted by al fresco shootings. Wintour's debut cover featured a 19-year-old Israeli model in frayed $ 50 jeans and a jeweled Christian Lacroix top.
Wintour broke stereotypes one by one. Having proved that fashion is nothing more than a game, she established her own rules and made the entire fashion world follow them.

Rule # 1: if you want to shine on the pages of VOGUE - get rid of excess weight. The American TV star Oprey Winfrey, for example, had to lose 9 kilograms.

Rules # 2: If at the last moment the editor decides that you are not in the spirit of VOGUE - humble yourself and find the strength to live on. In 1999, Wintour took a look at a test shoot of Jennifer Lopez and refused the cover. Verdict: "Too vulgar!" The verdict is final and not subject to appeal. Point.

Anna Wintour and André Leon Telli, Chief Editor of American Vogue

FASHION WARS

Many fashion journalists refuse to pick up a pen until it starts writing; without it, shows simply do not start. Or they even finish earlier - last year she shortened Paris Fashion Week by three days because she didn't want to stay in Paris too long; as a result, the shows started at 8.45 am and ran 13 times a day.

Anna with her daughter Bee Shaffer

... and with Grace Coddington

Fashion weeks have their own hierarchy: at the top are the chief editors of fashion magazines, among which Vogue is number one, then buyers, then stylists, and journalists - alas! - in last place. Wintour compares favorably with them already in that he rarely wears black (not counting glasses from Chanel); white, beige, suede, fur boas, for which PETA hates her so much, and endless Prada, for which everyone who reads "The Devil Wears Prada" loves her so much. With this "prada" came a stupid story - Anna was only three chairs away from an unknown young lady, sitting in exactly the same as hers, a gold brocade skirt from Prada. The next day, the editor-in-chief showed up in exactly the same configuration - a gold skirt and a beige cardigan, they say, I was not mistaken when I put on Prada, I always wear it, do you? She will be able to find such a way out of a critical situation that a mere mortal will come up with at home, after a six-hour conversation with a friend, or maybe she will never come up with it. Ironically, in 2005, the unyielding editor and outcast pop diva JLo found themselves on the same side of the barricade, under attack from animal advocates. Jennifer Lopez is paying the price for her new Sweetface clothing line, which uses natural fur. And Anna Wintour - for her obsession with "soft gold", its active propaganda and refusal to publish even paid anti-fur ads. In protest, the animal rights activists repeatedly attacked Wintour with creamy cakes and replicated her photographs under the slogan - "Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people!" It is not known how J.Lo behaved, but Wintour did not care about such provocations. "Wear more fur!" she declared, wiping the cake off her face. Another "assassination attempt" took place right at the Chanel show.
And when at the restaurant animal rights activists dumped a dead raccoon on her plate, she coldly asked the waiter to remove the plate with the foreign object and continued her meal.

Anti-Wintour image created and distributed by PETA to protest her continued promotion of fur in fashion.

IRON RULES

A notorious workaholic with imperial habits, Wintour is renowned for being. that in her entire life she has never deviated from the regime she established for herself. Key words - "did not back down". Everyone has the right to a regime, but not to retreat? She does not drink, does not stay at the party for more than 20 minutes, goes to bed at 10 pm to get up in the morning at 5.45. A cup of coffee, tennis, make-up artists, stylists and hairdressers come at 7.00 - and it begins ... She hates handbags, almost always wears dark glasses from Chanel and every minute of her life looks as if she is going to perform in front of an audience of millions. They say that when she needs to take a passport photo, she invites Ann Leibovitz or David LaChapelle.

Anna in her office

In the editorial office, she established a set of unspoken rules. No food! Younger employees should not speak to elders until they are contacted. One staff member foolishly greeted her boss when he bumped into her in the elevator and received a personal reprimand from one of her personal assistants. Another thrashed about, not knowing what to do, seeing that the chief stretched out in the corridor, caught with a hairpin on the carpet, and in the end he just walked by. Later he was told that he did absolutely the right thing. The retinue assures that, through ignorance, people interpret Anna's shyness as arrogance. Do not make me laugh. Vogue is regarded as a noble maidens' boarding house for girls from good families. "Wintour" s girls "are a priori slender, pretty and tastefully dressed. Once Anna let a journalist slip that she would not hire a fat young lady, no matter how brilliant an editor she was, and would not feel remorse." For me it is very important so that people who work here, especially in the fashion department, present themselves in such a way that outsiders will immediately understand that they are from Vogue. "

Wintour herself earns about a million dollars a year, not counting the generous "tips": $ 25,000 - a "ration" for clothes, a car with a chauffeur, free travel to all European shows, a room in the Ritz. Every Christmas, the accessories department goes crazy looking for gifts for friends, family and favorite Wintour advertisers. More precisely, the one who is chosen to be responsible, and everyone else sympathizes with him, goes crazy.

PERSONAL ACCOUNTS

"She positions her magazine as a bridge between designers and consumers," says Donna Karan. 10 years ago, when the grunge style took over the world, Anna Wintour demanded not to step back from glamor and personally turned to the designers: this is what we want to shoot. If you don’t do that, we won’t be filming. Wintour unaided and accelerated the careers of Michael Kors and Marc Jacobs. She admits that when choosing between two equal dresses, she will choose the one that belongs to the most profitable advertiser for her. "Commerce is not dirt for me," she likes to repeat.

Anna with Karl Lagerfeld

For almost 8 years, her right hand was Kate Betts. Equally talented and desperate, Betts tried to take it to the next level, writing tough stories about street culture and fashion, about the role of women in politics, about the financial torment of top designers, about the new generation. It seemed to Anna that such topics were below the level of Vogue, but she liked that Kate had the heart to argue with her. "She always had her own opinion, she is not a gray mouse, and what is the point of sitting here with a herd of mice !? I need personalities!" - assured Wintour. She pitched her personality against the young favorite from England Plum Sykes, enjoying their work together, knowing that Kate despises Plum, and Plum hates Kate. Betts left for Harper's Bazaar, rejecting offers from Conde Nast Publishing House to become editor of both Details and Mademoiselle, or simply stay at Vogue “until the position of chief becomes vacant.” While everyone in the staff, admiring Kate's courage, hugged her and congratulated, Wintour limited herself to dry "Good luck", but in the next letter to the editor she wrote down gentle parting words to Kate Betts and even posted her photo. Kate did not reciprocate. Briefly, with her thin smile, Wintour somehow dropped: "I always knew that Kate wants to be editor-in-chief, and I would love that, but I'm sorry, not at Conde Nast. "

Anna with Marc Jacobs

... and with Olivier Tiskens

On the eve of the 21st century, the dictator's icy façade began to melt. With an impeccable past, an impeccable present and a brilliant future (which will never come, because the impeccable present will last forever), Anna Wintour was caught in a completely human business - an affair with a married man. And, again, the key word is "caught." Her last name and the last name of Shelby Brian, the telephone tycoon, flashed in all the tabloids. Anna's husband, a well-known pediatrician, with whom she lived for 15 years and to whom she gave birth to two children, called Brian's wife Katherine and said: "Hi, I have good news: your husband and my wife are fucking each other." Shelby promised his wife that it would not be like this anymore, and even gave her a new ring. Wintour, who portrayed frenzied excitement at official events, poked the floor with the heel of Blanques, refused to comment, or referred everyone to her assistant.

Anna with her husband J. Shelby Brian and Tom Ford

For the employees of the Vogue Empire, everything was obvious for a long time: she closed the door during phone calls, lingered at lunches longer than usual, and her hair ... was not as flawless as ever. Newcomers like In Style and Marie Claire seized the moment to bite Vogue's heels, and Conde Nast chairman Si Newhouse began to talk about losing confidence in his golden girl. Friends were sure that Anna would apply for resignation. The most interesting events took place at the shows. Wintour still had to sit in the front row, which she apparently did not really want. "It's like a car accident, everything happens before your eyes, but you can't help anything," said one of her assistants. ".

Anna Wintour's house in the Hamptons

Wintour herself, having filed for divorce, traveled to warm Greece and ... became icy again: "Oh, you know, my family and my friends know what's really going on, and if the rest of the world thinks otherwise, I I just don't pay attention. "
They say that now Wintour is carried away by politics, put on the cover of Hillary Clinton, and threw the rest of the pages with materials about Madeleine Albright, Leah Rabin and other political lionesses. She tackles the Internet version of Vogue with a teenage zeal, although she admits that she still has a hard time sending out banal e-mail herself. Recently, she directed a blog that is being created on the magazine's website to come up with a better title. She hates the word "blog" and does not want to see it on the site. True, a source from Wintour's entourage assures that she does not want to call the blog a blog, since it will not be a blog, that is, she would not want people to treat this blog as a blog, so the blog being created should be called something else. The Magic Woman Having stumbled and kept her balance, the queen became the queen in the square. It's like with thoroughbred horses - true connoisseurs are always looking for a horse with a flaw: for example, absolutely black - with a white spot to further emphasize the blackness.

Karin Roitfeild, editor-in-chief of French Vogue, with her daughter and Anna Wintour with her daughter Bee Shaffer

Anna wintour
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anna Wintour (born November 3, 1949) is the Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. edition of Vogue, a position she has held since 1988. A native Londoner of English and American parentage, she became interested in fashion as a teenager and advised her father Charles, editor of the Evening Standard, on how to better make the newspaper appealing to the youth of mid-1960s Britain. After dropping out of school at 16, she forsook college to start a career in journalism on both sides of the Atlantic that stopped at New York and Home & Garden before she took over at British Vogue and finally the flagship magazine in New York. She succeeded in turning around a faltering product and has been widely recognized in the publishing industry for her success.
Like her predecessor Diana Vreeland, she has become a fashion icon in her own right. Her bob haircut and sunglasses have become a common sight in the front row of the most exclusive fashion shows.
She has become as much of an institution in the fashion world as the magazine she edits. Universally hailed for her keen eye for fashion trends and support for younger designers, her aloof and demanding persona has earned her the nickname "Nuclear Wintour". A former personal assistant of hers, Lauren Weisberger, wrote the 2003 bestselling roman a clef The Devil Wears Prada, later made into a successful film starring Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, a fashion editor widely believed to be based on Wintour. She has also drawn both praise and criticism for her willingness to use the magazine and its cachet to shape the industry as a whole. Animal rights activists have also singled her out for her continued promotion of fur.

Family
Her father, Charles Vere Wintour, CBE, was a former editor of The Evening Standard. Her mother was Wintour "s first wife, Eleanor (" Nonie ") Trego Baker, the daughter of a Harvard law professor, whom he married in 1940 and divorced in 1979. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Anna (Gilkyson) Baker, a Philadelphia socialite. Her stepmother is Audrey Slaughter, a magazine editor who founded such British publications as Honey and Petticoat.
Wintour had four siblings, three of whom survive: James Charles, the managing director of Gravesham Borough Council; Nora Hilary Wintour, the deputy general secretary of Public Services International in Geneva, Switzerland; Patrick Wintour, who started as labor correspondent at The Guardian in 1983 and rose to become the political editor for both it and the The Observer in 2006. Her eldest brother, Gerald Jackson Wintour, died as a child in 1951 when he was struck by a car.
Her aunt Cordelia Wintour married Sir Eric James, who was granted a life peerage as Baron James of Rusholme.

Early life
The young Wintour was educated at North London Collegiate School, where she frequently rebelled against the dress code by wearing her skirts so that the hem was higher than allowed. At the age of 14 she began wearing her hair in the bob that has since become her trademark. As London began to swing, she became a dedicated follower of fashion as a regular viewer of Cathy McGowan on Ready Steady Go !, and her father regularly consulted her when he was considering ideas for increasing readership in the youth market. In her later teens, she began dating gossip columnist Nigel Dempster and became a fixture on the London club circuit with him.

Career
From fashion to journalism
At 16, Anna dropped out of North London Collegiate. Wintour chose not to go to college but instead entered a training program at Harrods. At her parents "behest, she also took some fashion classes at a nearby school, but soon dropped out, telling her friend Vivienne Lasky that" you either know fashion or you don "t". At Harrod "s, she continued dating well-connected older men, in this case Peter Gitterman, the stepson of London Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Georg Solti.
She entered the field of fashion journalism in 1970 when Harper "s Bazaar merged with Queen to become, for a time, Harper" s & Queen. There, she discovered model Annabel Hodin, a former North London classmate, and used the connections she had built up to secure locations for some striking, innovative shoots.One recreated the works of Renoir and Manet using models in go-go boots.After a short stint at a small magazine named Savvy, Wintour would move on to become a junior fashion editor at Harper "s Bazaar in New York in 1975, where she lasted less than a year before being fired. Anna went on to become editor in charge of fashion at Viva.According to Jerry Oppenheimer "s biography Front Row, she would later omit mention of the magazine in her career because of its connections to Penthouse. After three years, she moved on to become fashion editor of New York.

British vogue
She became editor of British Vogue in 1986 and House & Garden the following year. At the former, she told her father "s old paper, the Evening Standard, she wanted to reach" a new kind of woman out there. She "s interested in business and money. She doesn" t have time to shop anymore. She wants to know what and why and where and how. "
At the latter, she was so fond of putting couture in photo spreads that industry wags began to refer to the magazine as House & Garment. She managed to turn around and increase circulation of British Vogue but her couture photo spreads turned off subscribers to House & Garden such that it would eventually close down after she left. "She destroyed House & Garden in about two days," complained a fired editor, noting that she had, in her first week, killed phot spreads and articles that had cost $ 2 million. (Later, it would be revived by its parent company, Conde Nast).

American Vogue
She was expected to do the same at American Vogue, when she took over in 1988. It had, under her predecessor Grace Mirabella, become more focused on lifestyles as a whole and less on fashion. Industry insiders worried that it was losing ground to the upstart ELLE, which had been introduced to America from France in 1985. Wintour made her mark early on with a shift in the cover pictures. Whereas Mirabella had preferred tight headshots of well-known models, Wintour "s covers showed more of the body and were taken outside, in natural light, instead of the studio, echoing what Vreeland had done years earlier. She used less well-known models , and mixed inexpensive clothes with the high fashion - the first issue she was in charge of, in November of that year, featured a young Israeli model in a $ 50 pair of faded jeans and a bejeweled T-shirt by Christian Lacroix worth 200 times that (200 x $ 50 = $ 10,000). Eight months later, another model was shown in wet hair, with just a terrycloth bathrobe and apparently without makeup. She also made a point of seeing to it that photographers, makeup artists and hairstylists got as much credit for the images as the models.
Under her editorship, the magazine renewed its focus on fashion and returned to the prominence it had held under Diana Vreeland. The September 2004 issue boasted a record 832 pages, the largest issue of a monthly magazine ever published at that time. She has also overseen the introduction of three spinoff titles: Teen Vogue, Vogue Living and Men "s Vogue. Teen Vogue has outpaced its two top competitors, ELLE Girl and Cosmo Girl in ad pages and dollars, and the 164 ad pages in the debut issue of Men "s Vogue were the most for a first issue in Conde Nast history. Her accomplishment in expanding the brand earned her the coveted title of "Editor of the Year," by the industry trade magazine AdAge.
Her salary is reported to be $ 5 million a year and she also receives generous perks including a $ 50,000 clothes budget, a chauffeur and a suite at the Hotel Ritz Paris whilst attending Paris Fashion Week.A&E IndieFilms and R.J. Cutler are to shoot a feature-length documentary chronicling the making of Vogue "s September issue. Cutler had approached Wintour in 2004 and will direct the untitled pic which will be shot over eight months as Wintour prepares the fall fashion issue, known in the industry as the "fashion bible". The filmmakers plan to have the pic completed in 2008

Fashion industry power broker
Anna Wintour, through the years, has become one of the most powerful people in fashion, setting trends and anointing new designers. The Guardian has called her the "unofficial mayoress" of New York City.She has worked behind the scenes to encourage fashion houses to hire younger, fresher designers such as John Galliano, who owes his position at Christian Dior to her intervention. She persuaded Donald Trump to let Marc Jacobs use a ballroom at the Plaza Hotel for a show when he and his partner were short of cash. More recently, she persuaded Brooks Brothers to hire the relatively unknown Thom Browne Her protegee at Vogue, Plum Sykes, became a successful novelist, drawing her settings from New York "s fashionable elite.
Like many successful power brokers, she rarely makes her wishes known directly. Fashion industry publicists say that a simple "Do you want me to go to Anna with this?" from a subordinate is often enough to settle a dispute in Vogue "s favor.

Personal life
Marriages and children
She married child psychiatrist David Shaffer in 1984and has two children by him, Charles (Charlie) and Katherine (known as Bee), who blogs for the Daily Telegraph (during both pregnancies, she continued to wear Chanel miniskirts to work).
The couple divorced in 1999; tabloid newspapers and gossip columnists speculated that it was an affair with millionaire investor Shelby Bryan that ended the marriage, but Wintour has refused to comment. She maintains an ongoing relationship with Bryan that friends say has mellowed her. "She smiles now and has been seen to laugh", the Observer quoted one as saying.

Philanthropy
Despite her infamous icy facade, Wintour is also a noted philanthropist. She serves as a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.Wintour began the CFDA / Vogue Fund in order to encourage, support and mentor unknown fashion designers. She has also raised over $ 10 million for AIDS charities since 1990, by organizing various high profile benefits.

Work habits
She rises daily before 6 am, plays tennis and has her hair and makeup done, then gets to Vogue "s offices at 8. She always arrives at fashion shows at their scheduled starting time, whether or not they can be reasonably expected to do so . "I use the waiting time to make phone calls, make notes; I get some of my best ideas at the shows ", she says. According to the BBC documentary Boss Woman, she is similarly efficient with her time elsewhere in her day, rarely staying at parties for more than 20 minutes at a time and getting to bed by 10:15 every night.
At Vogue, she reportedly has three full-time assistants (one more than suggested by The Devil Wears Prada) but sometimes surprises callers by answering the phone herself. Her good friend Barbara Amiel says that she often turns her cell phone off in order to eat lunch uninterrupted, and likes to have a good steak for her midday meal.
Politics
"Anna is a liberal", says Amiel. "She endorsed Al Gore in his presidential bid".

Criticism
While her success at turning Vogue around and her support of the fashion industry and charity work are universally acknowledged, that has not immunized her from criticism.
In 2003, one of her former assistants, Lauren Weisberger, published the bestselling roman a clef The Devil Wears Prada. Its antagonist, Miranda Priestly, editor of the fictional Runway, was widely believed to be based on Wintour.
Two years later, Wintour was the subject of an unauthorized biography by Jerry Oppenheimer, Front Row: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue "s Editor In Chief, that drew on many unnamed sources, often with grudges, to paint a similar portrait of the real woman.According to Oppenheimer, Wintour not only declined his requests for an interview but directed others not to cooperate.This is consistent with reports that she goes to great lengths to manage her public image. When she took over as American Vogue editor, gossip columnist Liz Smith reported rumors that she had gotten the job by having an affair with Conde Nast chairman Si Newhouse. Wintour was reportedly furious and made her anger the subject of one of her first staff meetings.
There have also been accusations that she has imposed an elitist aesthetic on the magazine, promoting celebrities over fashion personalities and making demands that even prominent subjects change their image before being featured in its pages.

Personality
Accounts of her personality often describe it as cold. In his autobiographical comedy "How to Make Enemies and Alienate People", British journalist Toby Young nicknamed her "Nuclear Wintour" for her icy demeanour and alleged mood swings during her tenure at British Vogue, an epithet that has been widely reused
"I think she has been very rude to a lot of people in the past, on her way up - very terse.", Said the same friend the Observer quoted on the positive effect of her relationship with Bryan. "She doesn" t do small talk. She is never going to be friends with her assistant "." You definitely did not ride the elevator with her ", agrees a former assistant. Even those who like her admit to some trepidation at her presence." Anna happens to be a friend of mine, "says Amiel," a fact which is of absolutely no help in coping with the cold panic that grips me whenever we meet ".
She has just as often been described as a perfectionist who routinely makes impossible, arbitrary demands of those who work for or under her and treats them unkindly ... "kitchen scissors at work", in the words of one commentator. "The notion that Anna would want something done" now "and not" shortly "is accurate," Amiel says of The Devil Wears Prada. "Anna wants what she wants right away". She reportedly once made a junior staffer look through a photographer "s trash to find a picture he had refused to give her. In a frequently-retold story, a new intern at the magazine is told she must not make eye contact with Wintour or initiate conversation with her. One day in the hall, the intern sees Wintour trip and steps right over her rather than violate this taboo.
Critics of Wintour "s management style also point to a May 11, 2004 ruling by a New York court in a case brought against Wintour and Shaffer by the state Workers" Compensation Board. It sought to recover $ 140,000 in costs it had incurred when a former employee of the couple who had been injured on the job turned out not to have had the necessary insurance coverage. Wintour and Shaffer repeatedly failed to make payment, forcing the suit. The two were ordered to pay $ 104,403; an additional $ 32,639 was levied against Wintour herself.

Lauren Weisberger "s roman a clef, The Devil Wears Prada, supposedly about Wintour and Vogue.

The devil wears prada
Weisberger "s novel is told in the voice of Andrea" Andy "Sachs, a young woman fresh from college with literary ambitions who knows little about fashion when she starts a year at Runway magazine, working as the junior assistant to legendary editor Miranda Priestly, who among her other similarities to Wintour is British, has two young children and serves on the Met "s board. Priestly is depicted as a tyrant who makes impossible demands of her subordinates, gives them almost none of the information or time necessary to comply and then berates them for their failures to do so. Similar charges have long been made about Wintour herself by (usually unnamed) former employees. Prior to its publication, Wintour told the New York Times, "I always enjoy a great piece of fiction. I haven" t decided whether I am going to read it or not. "
While it has been suggested that the setting and Priestly were based on Vogue and Wintour, Weisberger denies this, and even gives Wintour herself a cameo appearance near the end of the book (In her less-successful second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, the main character doesn "t think she" s capable of working for Wintour when her uncle suggests it.
Yet it is almost universally believed that the book "s success was due to the real-life angle. Neither Vogue nor any other Conde Nast publications, nor many other popular women" s magazines, reviewed Weisberger "s book. When the film was released , one of the company "s magazines, The New Yorker, ran a review of the film by David Denby that disparaged the novel in comparison. The New York Times" s Janet Maslin avoided mentioning Wintour "s name in one of the paper" s two negative reviews of the book. Its favorable notice of the movie mentioned neither Vogue nor Wintour.

Film adaptation
During production of the movie in 2005, Wintour was reportedly pressuring prominent fashion personalities, particularly designers, not to make cameo appearances in the movie lest they be banished from the magazine "s pages, at least temporarily. She denied it through a spokesperson who said she was interested in anything that "supports fashion". But, while many designers are mentioned in the film, only one, Valentino Garavani, actually appeared as himself.
The film was released, in mid-2006, to great commercial success. Wintour attended the premiere wearing Prada. In the film, actress Meryl Streep plays a Priestly different enough from the book "s to receive critical praise as an entirely original (and more sympathetic) character (although Streep" s office in the film bears similarities striking enough to Wintour "sthat the latter reportedly had it redecorated after the film "s release. Streep denies that her portrayal was based on Wintour, whom the actress says she only met at the first benefit screening of the film. She stated she had no interest in doing a documentary on the Vogue editor, preferring to draw her inspiration from an amalgam of uberbosses she had met over the years.
Amiel reported that her first reaction was to say that the film would probably go straight to DVD. It went on to make over US $ 300 million in worldwide box office receipts. Later in 2006, in an interview with Barbara Walters which aired the same day the DVD was released, Wintour said she found the film "really entertaining" and praised it for making fashion "entertaining and glamorous and interesting .... I was one hundred percent behind it ".
While Wintour may have borne no malice toward the film and those involved in it, the same may not be true regarding Weisberger. When Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove reported shortly before the film "s release that the author was having enough trouble with her third novel (after disappointing sales of her second) that her editor suggested she completely start over, there was enough bitterness left that Wintour "s spokesman Patrick O" Connell suggested she "should get a job as someone else" s assistant. "

PETA campaign
She has often been the target of various animal rights organizations such as PETA who are angered by her use of fur in Vogue, her pro-fur editorials and her refusal to run paid advertisements from animal rights organizations. Undeterred, she continues to use fur in photo spreads. She is routinely assaulted by activists over this matter.
In Paris in October 2005, she was hit with a tofu pie while waiting to get into the Chloe show. She herself said she has been physically attacked so many times she "s" lost count. "She and Vogue" s publisher Ron Galotti ( himself the inspiration of a fictional character as Mr. Big from Sex and the City) once retaliated for a protest outside the Conde Nast offices during the company "s annual Christmas party by sending down a plate of steaming, freshly cooked roast beef.

Elitism
Some critics have charged that instead of models, celebrities are becoming the face of Vogue. Indeed, a wide range of prominent women have graced the front cover of Vogue during Wintour "s tenure, from Oscar-winning actresses (Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, and Angelina Jolie) to celebrities (Melania Trump and Kate Winslet) and politicians (Hillary Clinton).
According to insiders, however, she has not been content to let celebrities appear on the cover, but has demanded they bow to her standards as well. Oprah Winfrey was reportedly told she would not be photographed for the cover until she lost weight, and Clinton would not appear until she stopped wearing navy blue suits as much as she had been. At the 2005 Anglomania celerbation, a Vogue-sponsored salute to British fashion at the Met, Wintour is said to have gone beyond mere approval and personally chose the clothes that prominent attendees such as Jennifer Lopez, Kate Moss, Donald Trump and Diane von Furstenberg wore ... "I don" t think Vreeland had that kind of concentration ", says Women" s Wear Daily publisher Patrick McCarthy. "She wouldn" t have dressed Babe Paley. Nor would Babe Paley have let her ".
Another writer for the magazine complained that Wintour excluded ordinary working women, many of whom are regular subscribers, from the pages. "She" s obsessed only about reflecting the aspirations of a certain class of reader, "the writer says." "We once had a piece about breast cancer which started with an airline stewardess, but she wouldn" t have a stewardess in the magazine so we had to go and look for a high-flying businesswoman who "d had cancer."
Wintour has been accused of exercising her power to set herself apart even from ostensible peers. "I do not think fiction could surpass the reality", an unnamed British fashion magazine editor says of The Devil Wears Prada. "[A] rt in this instance is only a poor imitation of life." Wintour, the editor says, routinely requests that her seats at New York fashion shows are located such that she is not only separated from competing editors but cannot even see or be seen by them, either.Further,
We spend our working lives telling people which it-bag to carry but Anna is so above the rest of us she does not even have a handbag. She has a limo. And she has her walkers Andre Leon Talley and Hamish Bowles, whose main job is to carry her bits around for her.
Amiel confirms this practice. "Why she has this routine I don" t know. Certainly it unnerves females ... Obviously it is part of the persona ".
Some of her intercessions on behalf of designers, particularly Georgina Chapman (currently dating film mogul Harvey Weinstein), have also been criticized as being motivated by personal connections rather than talent. By persuading designers to loan clothes to prominent socialites and celebrities, who are then photographed wearing the clothes not only in Vogue but more general-interest magazines like People and Us, which in turn influence what buyers want, some in the industry believe Wintour is exerting too much control over it, especially since she is not involved in making or producing clothes herself. "The end result is that Anna can control it all the way to the selling floor", says Candy Pratts Price, executive fashion director at style.com.

Responses
Wintour has rarely, if ever, personally responded to criticisms of her, as most critics have been her employees or others with something to gain by remaining in her favor. But there have been a few defenses from other quarters. Amanda Fortini at Slate said she was just fine with Wintour "s elitism since that was intrinsic to fashion and, ultimately, good for the magazine" s readers:
In a sea of women "s glossies that purport to be about fashion but publish earnest articles chronicling the author" s quest for self-actualization, Vogue stands apart. The voluminous fashion pages are arty, original, and sophisticated, shot by talented photographers like Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn, and Steven Meisel. Most of us read Vogue not with the intention of buying the wildly expensive clothes, but because doing so educates our eye and hones our taste, similar to the way eating gourmet food refines the palate. This is a pleasure enabled by Wintour "s ruthless aesthetic, her refusal to participate in the democratizing tendency of most of her competitors. To deny her that privilege is to deny her readers the privilege of fantasy in the form of beautifully photographed Paris couture.
Responses to horror stories about her treatment of employees have frequently been met with charges of sexism, that similar behavior from a male boss would seem unremarkable. "Powerful women in the media always get inspected more thoroughly than their male counterparts", said the New York Times in a piece about Wintour shortly after the film "s release. Wintour has been likened to Martha Stewart and fellow Conde Nast editor Tina Brown, both of whom also have been described as overbearing and abusive to those who work for them.
Some of her defenders have even seen her as feminist whose changes to Vogue have actually in a small way reflected, acknowledged and reinforced advances in the status of women. In a nominal review of Oppenheimer "s book in the Washington Monthly, managing editor Christina Larson notes that Vogue, unlike many other women" s magazines, doesn "t play to its readership" s sense of inadequacy:
Unlike its glossy peers on the newsstand, it isn "t loaded with tips to flatten your abs, flaunt your cleavage, or squeeze into your thin jeans by Friday; it assumes you need no help mastering love moves no man can resist. It doesn" t purport to solve problems, to help you feel less guilty. Instead, it reminds women to take satisfaction, parading all manner of fineries (clothes, furniture, travel destinations) that a successful woman might buy, or at least admire. While it surely exists to sell ads - which it does remarkably well - it does so primarily by exploiting ambition, not insecurity.
She contrasts Vreeland "s Vogue with Wintour" s by noting how the former treated female beauty as something innate, whereas Wintour showed how it could be created. "She shifted Vogue" s focus from the cult of beauty to the cult of the creation of beauty ... Beyond whisking models off their pedestals, the concept that grace is a construction, and not merely a gift, allows that it can be enjoyed longer, well past the age of 40 or 50. "To her, the focus on celebrities is a welcome development as it means that women are making the cover of Vogue at least in part for what they have accomplished, not just how they look. "Wintour" s Vogue allows women to imagine a world, increasingly an attainable one, in which the pursuit of beauty reinforces rather than overshadows female authority ", she concludes.
Concerns about her role as an eminence grise of the fashion world are allayed by those familiar with how she uses that power, who say she is not manipulative. "She" s honest. She tells you what she thinks. Yes is yes and no is no ", according to Karl Lagerfeld." She "s not too pushy" agrees Francois-Henri Pinault, chief executive officer of PPR, Gucci "s parent company." She lets you know it "s not a problem if you can "t do something she wants. But she makes you understand that if you could, she would be very supportive with her magazine. "
Her defenders also suggest her power over the industry is neither as vindictively applied, nor as absolute, as is often believed. She continued to support Gucci despite her strong belief PPR was making a major mistake letting Tom Ford go. Designers such as Alice Roi and Isabel Toledo have become rising stars in the industry without indulging Wintour or Vogue.
She has also earned praise for her tenacity. "Once a friend, that" s it ", Amiel quotes Talley as saying, after Wintour helped him overcome a serious weight problem. Amiel herself agrees that" her singular quality is one of loyalty ". This carries over into her professional life. Her willingness to throw her weight around has helped keep Vogue independent despite its heavy reliance on advertising dollars. Wintour was the only fashion editor who refused to follow an Armani ultimatum to feature more of its clothes in the magazine "s editorial pages if it was running the company "s ads.
Even The Devil Wears Prada is not without some admiration for Wintour / Priestly. Weisberger, through Andy, notes that she does manage the difficult task of making all the major editorial decisions in a major fashion magazine every month all by herself and that she does have genuine class and style

In popular culture
* Edna Mode, in the 2004 hit animated film The Incredibles, was believed to have been at least partially inspired by Wintour, due to the similar bob haircut.
* The HBO series Tracey Takes On, starring Tracey Ullman, also featured a similar Anna Wintour character.
* Wintour is referenced in another HBO series, Sex and the City, when Carrie Bradshaw is interviewed for a job at Vogue. Carrie gets drunk with an editor in his Vogue office, who tries to subtly help the tipsy Bradshaw make her way out of the building. On her way she bumps in to a female employee and, embarrassed, says "please tell me that wasn" t Anna Wintour ".
* Ugly Betty "s character Fey Sommers shares some characteristics as Wintour, such as the bob and sunglasses, being the editor of a fashion magazine, and having a last name that sound like a season. Wintour is also referenced in the series after Bradford Meade is arrested and Wilhelmina Slater is poised to take over as Editor-in-Cheif of the magazine.Wilhelmina is informed by her assistant that Wintour called with an invitation to lunch, which Wilhelmina declines.
* There are several references of Anna throughout Robert Altman "s 1994 film" Pret-a-Porter "; on the featured fashion shows, fashion critics sitting on the front row wear sunglasses. The fictional fashion editor, Regina Krumm (played by Linda Hunt ) has a similar haircut style.

She is either adored or hated. The average is not given. On the sidelines they call "nuclear winter" (nuclear winter is consonant with Wintour), Hitler in a skirt and the devil in the flesh. However, those who still manage to gain the favor of this woman are “doomed” to world recognition.

Anna Wintour is officially the most influential figure in the fashion world and the permanent editor-in-chief of American Vogue for 30 years.

In '86, Anna first came to a magazine (at first it was English Vogue) and said your gloss sucks.

And she began to change there ... EVERYTHING. From covers to designers whose collections were published there. Wintour found new ones and made everyone admire them.

At the suggestion of Anna, such names as Oscar de la Ranta, Patrick Demarchelier and even Marc Jacobs gained fame. There are legends that one unknown Italian designer, after meeting with Anna, said: "She is the most terrible woman in the entire universe." So he remained an unknown designer.

Because of her, brands changed entire collections, and Paris Fashion Week in 2001 was officially shortened by three days, just because Wintour did not want to stay in France for so long ...

Anna Wintour is the most influential woman in the world of gloss and also a style icon. Is it possible in her case somehow differently?

But before talking about Anna's style, I propose to rewind a little and find out a little more about this woman. After all, one cannot speak of a single icon only as a human mannequin dressed in beautiful clothes. Being an Icon means so much more.

Biography of Anna Wintour

CHILDHOOD

Anna was born in 1949 in London to an average English family. Rumor has it that the peculiar style of management, thanks to which Anna partly became famous, she inherited from her father, the editor of the Evening Standard newspaper. The late Charles Wintour, a World War II veteran, once earned a reputation as a tough and stern man, whom his colleagues referred to as "cold Charlie".

Little Wintour has been fond of fashion since childhood. Her father subscribed to magazines for her, which she re-read from cover to cover in a day.

He also advised ten-year-old Anna, when she was preparing a school essay on the topic “What I want to become when I grow up,” to write “to run Vogue magazine”. So then don't believe in the power of desires :-)

At school, Anna often had clashes with teachers. She was scolded mainly for inappropriate appearance: bright colors, shocking dresses and many jewelry. Anna went to lessons like an Oscar.

At 15, she did the "same" hairstyle - a bob with bangs, and at 16 dropped out of school and changed classmates to bohemian youths to hang out in the same clubs as The Beatles and Rolling Stones.

CARIER START

Long before Vogue, Anna began her career in the Harper 's & Queen fashion department in London. Over the years she has climbed the editorial ladder and honed her craft from publication to publication, constantly moving between New York and London. moved to New York and became fashion editor for Harper's Bazaar. However, she did not take root there. She did not last long at Harper's and was fired for her “innovative” ways of working.

After twenty, Anna managed to work at Viva magazine, and in 1981 got a job at New York Magazine.

In 1986, Anna Wintour returned to London, having received an interesting offer from English Vogue as editor-in-chief. Before that, Anna had already managed to work as a creative director at American Vogue, but they say that she did not get along with many employees because of her authoritarianism, and they simply got rid of her and sent her back to England.

VOGUE

But in 1988, Anna's dream came true. She finally took the lead in American Vogue.

Since then, Anna has never left her post and has been the editor-in-chief at Vogue for 30 years.

"I want Vogue to be sharp and sexy. No, I'm not interested in a super-rich audience. I want our readers to be energetic women, with their own money and a wide range of interests," Anna once said in an interview with London Daily Telegraph.

"There is a new kind of woman. She is interested in business and money. She no longer has time to shop. She wants to know what and why, where and how."

In the late 80s, when Anna became the head of Vogue, the magazine was going through hard times. The youthful Elle stepped on the heels, which quickly gained momentum. Vogue at the time focused primarily on lifestyle and very little on fashion per se.

Anna quickly found out what to do.

For starters, she strongly proposed ending the era of supermodels in favor of celebrities. She was the first to feel that there was power behind them. And although the word "influencers" was not yet as popular as it is now, Anna literally opened Pandora's box, starting to publish people "from TV" on the covers of Vogue. The magazine was selling three times better!

Madonna, 1989 Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere, 1991

Wintour also became the first to truly blend mass-market fashion with heavy luxury in her photo shoots. Her debut cover as editor-in-chief in November 1988 was a photograph of a 19-year-old Israeli model wearing $ 50 jeans and a $ 10,000 stone-inlaid T-shirt from Christian Lacroix.

DEVIL WEARS PRADA

Anna brought a lot of new things to Vogue's life, while she herself did not change her life principles.

She hated overweight people, sifting out everyone "by physique" - from colleagues to friends. At one time, for the sake of the cover of Vogue, even Oprah Winfrey herself lost 10 kilograms.

But one day she changed her rule and hired a girl with a "non-magazine" appearance - Lauren Weisberger. Inconspicuous, but, as it turned out, an enterprising blonde, she worked at Vogue for 10 months and quit. A few months later, the scandalous "The Devil Wears Prada" came out, where a former subordinate poured out the whole truth about her boss.

And in 2006 he appeared on the screens with Meryl Streep in the title role.

It would seem that if Wintour is so influential, then why did she allow the whole world to see the truth about her? Anna, after all, without much effort could grind Weisberger into powder and go to court even BEFORE the book was published, but for some reason she did not do this.

Anna said nothing, and later just came to the premiere of the film ... dressed in Prada from head to toe.

ANNA VINTUR'S STYLE

In 2006, plans were announced to film a documentary about the work done behind the scenes in the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine.

September is the traditional start of the glossy season. Each September issue of Vogue is something special. The film entitled "September Issue", which was released in 2009, for many only pointed out what is shown in exaggerated form in "The Devil Wears Prada". And he confirmed that there is simply no equal on this planet in the work and professionalism of Anna Wintour.

What else could be seen more closely in this film is the well-established style of Anna Wintour herself.

Dark glasses, permanent square, heel and dress ... Everything is not too flashy and even a little conservative, but all this cannot be confused with anyone else.

It seems that Anna was born like that. But no. Unlike her legendary character, Anna Wintour's style has undergone significant changes over the years. Only one thing has not changed - she always looked perfect.

In the late 80s, when Anna first took over Vogue, she was one of the most well-dressed women. True, in those days, Anna was an ardent admirer of glamor, metallic sheen and dresses a la Kate Moss. Well, those were the times :-)

1988 1990

And although Anna's style has evolved significantly since then, some details still remain unchanged. She still hardly wears pants, preferring a feminine look in dresses and skirts, although they have become a little longer. Black is also a rarity.

1990 1991

1993 (rare photo in trousers) 1995

1996 1999

Anna made the "that" haircut as a teenager. Today it is already her calling card. And so that during official events, her hair would lie "hair to hair", she always has two stylists who are ready to fix everything this minute.

In 1994, Anna picked up the perfect shoes for herself and also did not cheat on them again, as well as her hairstyle. She has been wearing Manolo for over twenty years. The first shoes were made to order. These were beige sandals with small heels. Since then, in almost all photos, Anna can only be seen in them. No, these, of course, are not the same shoes from '94. She just has about fifty such pairs.

1999 2011 2017

But Anna does not really like handbags, believing that they only interfere. As she herself says: "I have a phone and a head on my shoulders, why do I need a purse."

In public, Wintour almost always appears in black Chanel glasses. Someone thinks that she wears them because of eye problems (they react sharply to camera flashes), and someone thinks that it is easier for her to hide her true emotions this way. We will probably never know the answer.

Although recently Vogue showed Anna in a completely different light, forcing her to honestly answer 73 questions. There is about love for black, and about habits. If you want to get to know Anna better, you must watch! Especially for her beloved magazine, she even takes off her glasses.

As for Anna's style now, the last few years she has taken possession of the floral print. Anyone who is afraid to wear flowers, afraid to seem like a "auntie" should learn from a woman who is about to turn 70! It's all about the cut of things :-) As they say, the devil is in the details. And the devil, dressed in Prada, definitely knows a lot about it.

In April 2018, rumors leaked to the press about the imminent departure of Anna Wintour from the post of editor-in-chief of Vogue. Later, the magazine denied these speculations. Anna is not going to go anywhere at all. In the end, even somehow uncomfortable with these rumors! This woman has become a permanent symbol of all the world's gloss, and not only Vogue. And while it seems, "Who, if not her" ... But after all, she is 70 next year :-)

Of course, you can endlessly talk about how soulless, great and terrible Anna Wintour is. This cliché seems to have stuck to her forever.

But let's stop for a minute and think, is Anna really that bad? What's so terrible about her wanting people around her to do their jobs well? Isn't that what is required of them? And if Anna were not so demanding, would she have achieved what she now has? But she is one of the few women who, during her lifetime, influenced history. And she paid a heavy price for it. Forever doomed herself to live in captivity of her image of the "cold queen", where no one would ever see her weakness. Her style is a light smile, permanent square, dark glasses and a Prada suit. And in this she has no equal.

Trying on the image of Anna Wintour

A long time ago I included Anna Wintour in the list of the heroines of the project and sooooo many times pushed the shooting, replacing it with another icon. I'm sure you know why :))))

All these floral dresses and vintage sandals paired with 50 squares that have not changed for the last years puzzled me. And the beads ?!

In general, stress-stress :)))))

Yes, on the one hand, I do not copy the style, I can turn it over as I want, take at least a minimum of what I like and like. On the other hand, I have already made sure that if I do not frankly sympathize with the style of the heroine, then the shooting can turn out to be dull. And I definitely do not want this!

In general, I decided to challenge myself and try Anna's style no matter what!

Straight with flowers and beads! :))))

After all, there is a style, it is recognizable, it cannot be confused with anything else.

I used a wig and glasses to get into the picture :))

Knowing about Anna's dislike of handbags, I went my own way. Picking up the handbags to match her characteristic looks. I'm a bags-maniac, how am I without a bag?

Resigned to a floral print, even unexpectedly finding my charm in it, I could not combine it with sandals, so I replaced them with closed shoes and ankle boots. To be honest, I liked it!

The most difficult look for me is with a green floral dress, a tweed jacket and a necklace. I would say that this is Anna's calling card. It was impossible not to try.

And at the same time, I immediately made the kit in a new reading. No flowers, A-skirts, beads or conservative jackets.

And sent Anna into silvery space. This is my favorite look from this shoot. How do you like it?

My second favorite set in this shoot happened with the I am Studio burgundy tweed suit. Anna hasn't worn a miniskirt for a long time, neither have I.

But it came with the costume. And it was not possible to find a tweed skirt in midi length, and even with a suitable jacket.

And I remembered my once favorite trick - I put on a short skirt over a long one. And I realized that this is how I am ready to walk in my daily life.

In general, sometimes repeating, sometimes changing the style of our heroine, I got great pleasure from shooting and understood the DNA of her style.

As for me, I love to change. Therefore, it is difficult for me to understand the constancy of our icon in the choice of clothing. I wanted to "pump over" the usual conservative elements and give them a slightly different, more modern sound, without betraying the concept as a whole.

While I was preparing this article, I looked at hundreds of photographs of Anna Wintour, analyzing her style. And, if at first I was surprised, like many, at the number of things that seemed to be out of fashion for a long time, I recalled that not only wears the hottest trends, but even manages to stay ahead of them, I once again realized that one of signs of style are constancy, loyalty to oneself and the ability to dictate your own rules, to choose not what they impose on you, but what you like. And this is the main feature of our heroine - she plays by her own rules and this is what makes her so different from others and so successful.

Style is a reflection of our character, our way of talking about ourselves. In the case of Anna Wintour, this expression works 100%.

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