The glossy page is being turned — sort of.
Anna Wintour, the supreme leader of Vogue, is stepping down after 37 years at the fashion bible.
Long dubbed “nuclear Wintour” for her icy nature, the 75-year-old is leaving her role as editor-in-chief, but still retaining her cold death grip on it from above as the global chief content officer at publisher Condé Nast. Plus, she’ll still lord over the Met Gala — ensuring celebrities will continue to bow to her in a bid to score invites.
Part of me is sad to see Wintour go, albeit out of pure nostalgia. Her departure signals an official end to the golden age of glossies, when magazine editors ruled the New York City media landscape with impossibly glamorous designer wardrobes and their noses in the air.
She represents a bygone era of black cars, expense accounts, standing lunch reservations at Michael’s and sanctioned imperious behavior in the corner offices.
Before the digital revolution and social media influencers upended traditional gatekeepers, magazine editors were rock stars with a near monopoly on cultural influence.
And bold characters with the strongest points of view — and, sometimes, unsparing management styles — were usually rewarded with top jobs.
Wintour not only epitomized this, she was the complicated empress of it in the ’90s and aughts.
Stories abound about her alleged treatment of peasant underlings. Eye contact with her was reportedly forbidden, as was hopping into the elevator with her. A creature of continuity, she hasn’t changed her signature bob, her dark sunglasses or, reportedly, her lunch order of rare steaks in decades.
Her legacy was mythologized in “The Devil Wears Prada,” a roman à clef written by a former Wintour assistant, as well as its 2006 movie.
They don’t make those creative bullies like they used to. Now, executives have to sanitize their behavior through HR compliance and lead with kindness and compassion.
It’s good for office morale, but not for media gossip pages. How boring. Imagine a “The Devil Wears Prada” reboot where everyone is sitting around completing anti-harassment training videos and pitching SEO-driven stories about TikTok fashion trends. No cerulean blue monologue. No speech like, “I said to myself, go ahead. Take a chance. Hire the smart, fat girl.”
Where have all the characters gone?
Things changed at Vogue in 2020 when Wintour had to shake the lily-white elitism from her ranks.
“I want to start by acknowledging your feelings and expressing my empathy towards what so many of you are going through: sadness, hurt, and anger too,” she wrote in a note to staff, participating in the mass white atonement of the moment.
“It can’t be easy to be a Black employee at Vogue, and there are too few of you. I know that it is not enough to say we will do better, but we will … ”
Absolutely, hiring a more diverse staff was probably a good thing. But the arbiter of privilege turned her fashion bible and its digital site into a place for progressive politics, identitarianism and intersectionality. It became laughably woke.
Vogue also became increasingly partisan — a tool of the resistance.
While Republican first ladies Laura Bush, Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan weren’t given covers like their Dem counterparts, they were at least given the scraps of an inside spread. Then came Trump — and all that stopped.
After dishing out tongue baths and multiple covers to Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Jill Biden (including last summer while her husband’s campaign imploded), Vogue not only snubbed Melania — who was good enough for a cover in 2005. Earlier this year, a story ripped her official portrait, comparing her to a “freelance magician.”
Wintour, long a champion of Dem politicians, has channeled her snobbery against the right and anyone who wasn’t a card-carrying Dem. She fully turned her magazine into an arm of the DNC.
It became obvious that Vogue was not about American fashion, celebrity or culture — only left-wing figures. People like Stacey Abrams, a two-time loser for the Georgia governor’s mansion, and Sarah McBride, the first trans member of Congress, along with Kamala Harris.
Funnily enough, Second Lady Usha Vance — a first-generation American and accomplished attorney — is someone Vogue would bend over backward to shoot … if only she was married to a Dem.
So the time is right for Wintour to go. Her magazine could use a makeover to shake off the ingrained partisanship of the last 15 years.
But since Wintour is still hanging on to some power, I’m guessing we’ll just see last season’s collection again.
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