Anna Wintour still rules Vogue

The magazine and the woman cannot be unstitched; they are symbiotic, an incredibly chic ouroboros.

nna Wintour has long been considered the high priestess of fashion, and it is hard to imagine what American Vogue would be without her. But the fashion industry’s leading magazine and its editor-in-chief of 37 years are supposedly going their separate ways, after it was announced on 26 June that Wintour would be “stepping away” from the role. “When I became the editor of Vogue, I was eager to prove to all who might listen that there was a new, exciting way to imagine an American fashion magazine,” she told staffers in an editorial meeting. “Now, I find that my greatest pleasure is helping the next generation of impassioned editors storm the field with their own ideas.”

This sounds an awful lot like what someone would say if they were resigning – or retiring (Wintour is 75). But it seems she is doing neither. While Wintour is stepping back from the title’s day-to-day running, she will stay on as Vogue’s global editorial director, as well as chief content officer for its publisher, Condé Nast. Rather than a new editor-in-chief, Condé Nast is hiring a head of editorial content, who’ll report to Wintour. This is no abdication: the so-called queen of fashion’s reign is not over.

It’s easy to imagine Wintour was fated to dominate the fashion industry, given how profound and enduring her influence has been. But it wasn’t always so. “I think my father decided for me that I should work in fashion,” Wintour has said. Unsure of what to list as career objectives on an admissions form, she consulted her father, Charles, who was once editor of the London Evening Standard. “I said, ‘What shall I do?’ He said, ‘Write that you want to be editor of Vogue, of course.’ And that was it. It was decided.”

For nearly four decades, Wintour has been the arbiter of taste – in fashion, culture, even politics. Her first Vogue cover in November 1988 was a statement of intent: her vision for a more inclusive and contemporary publication. It featured the model Michaela Bercu, photographed by Peter Lindbergh, in a $10,000 Christian Lacroix jumper and $50 Guess jeans. It was radical: Bercu was unknown; jeans had never appeared on a Vogue cover before. It indicated the magazine’s deliberate effort to shift its aesthetic to something less lofty, more quotidian. It was so different, the printers thought there had been an error.

Wintour later recalled, “It was so unlike the studied and elegant close-ups that were typical of Vogue’s covers back then. This one broke all the rules.” It felt like a democratisation – and this impulse to make fashion more accessible would become Wintour’s signature. The Bercu cover mixed high- and low-end fashion, and with the model’s effortless look – minimal make-up and long, billowing hair strewn across her face – Vogue’s cover star was suddenly relatable. She seemed like the typical girl next door (only better, obviously).

Perhaps this prescience was Wintour’s preternatural talent. She didn’t just respond to cultural shifts – she anticipated them. In 1989, Wintour chose Madonna as the first celebrity to appear on the cover of the magazine, and she continued to leverage that prestigious spot as cultural currency. The April 2014 issue was used to publicise Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s upcoming wedding; May 2022’s cover announced Rihanna’s pregnancy. In response to the criticism that followed Kardashian and West’s cover – some believed the couple didn’t belong on such an esteemed title – Wintour said: “If we just remain deeply tasteful and put tasteful people on the cover… nobody would talk about us.” Presumably, Wintour didn’t mean West and Kardashian were distasteful, but that she believed fame would eventually eclipse talent. We can perhaps see Wintour’s influence in today’s nepo-baby culture.

Wintour’s bobbed silhouette and trademark sunglasses are iconic, but the woman beneath the facade remains as enigmatic as ever. Emma Soames, a friend of Wintour’s, said, “She’s not cold. She’s generous to a fault.” However, the late André Leon Talley, who was editor-at-large at Vogue, said, “I have huge psychological scars from my relationship [with Anna].”

Legend has it that an intern once saw Wintour fall over in the office and, too afraid to help her back up, simply walked past. “People couldn’t agree on many things about her, including whether she’s an introvert or an extrovert, ruthless or just very demanding,” said the fashion journalist Amy Odell, author of Anna: The Biography. “I couldn’t get a consensus.” But maybe that’s the point: to be omnipresent yet unknowable. It helps fuel the myth of “Nuclear Wintour”, the industry’s ultimate doyenne; while speculation about her goes on, she perches at the top, as ever, unbothered.

It is hard to disentangle Vogue from Wintour – they are symbiotic, an incredibly chic ouroboros, feeding on one another. Wintour gave the magazine an edge; it was the altar at which she was worshipped. Now, Vogue must try to work out what it is without her. As the monarchical model of editorship is retired quietly across the magazine industry, Condé Nast’s strategy has become increasingly globalised and decentralised. And so Vogue’s next head of content won’t need to be Wintour 2.0. They couldn’t be even if they wanted to since, after all, she isn’t stepping down. She is instead sidestepping into a different room, one with fewer cameras and more control: her fingerprints remain on every shoot, coverline, strategy pivot. Anna Wintour is becoming even more spectral, more unplaceable; the invisible architect. And in the corridors of fashion’s most powerful institutions, her voice continues to echo: whispering, deciding, ruling.