Glossed Over

Wintour Wednesdays: "I Didn't Think She Had That Human Element"

Welcome to Wintour Wednesdays, our peek inside the unauthorized biography Front Row—Anna Wintour: What Lies Beneath the Chic Exterior of Vogue’s Editor in Chief by Jerry Oppenheimer. Is Wintour’s glacial demeanor affected or genuine? How did she develop her affinity for fashion? And how many decades has she had that haircut, anyway? Let’s find out!

In January 1970, Wintour became a fashion assistant at Harper’s & Queen, where she quickly demonstrated her innate ability to run a leading magazine.

She had incredible ambition:

“There were other girls who were more talented, who had amazing taste and were chic, but didn’t have that incredible drive that Anna had—like a businessman who is really successful, who only looks in one direction and goes for it. Anna had that—this total conviction that she was aiming for the top job.”

Empathy for those less fortunate than she was:

Because she couldn’t afford private care, [co-worker Jillie] Murphy was treated in one of Britain’s National Health hospitals, the kind of public institution someone of Anna’s social standing would never have seen the inside of. “She was curious, not only to see how I was, but to see what a National Health hospital was like,” says Murphy. “I’ll never forget. She said, ‘It’s like real life.’ I didn’t think she had that human element.”

Formidable skill relating to co-workers:

“Anna couldn’t express her thoughts about fashion,” adds [editor and art director Willie] Landels. “We had a subeditor who said to me, ‘That fucking Anna Wintour! She’s given me this folder and I don’t know what to write because she doesn’t tell me anything.’ And I said, ‘Don’t be unkind about Anna. One day she will be our boss.’”

And a way of inspiring others to be their best:

..,the other girl was “sweet,” but that Anna “absolutely” beat her down and literally drove her out of the magazine. [Literally, eh?—Ed.] Anna didn’t fear competition from her but rather was disgusted by her weakness, which brought out the bully in her.

Next week: Anna climbs the Harper’s & Queen ladder, despite her lack of a first name ending in -ie and her way of being “incredibly spoiled, very flirtatious and slightly naughty, and enormously secretive.”

Wintour Wednesdays: "Don't They Ever Look in the Mirror?"

Welcome to Wintour Wednesdays, our peek inside the unauthorized biography Front Row—Anna Wintour: What Lies Beneath the Chic Exterior of Vogue’s Editor in Chief by Jerry Oppenheimer. Is Wintour’s glacial demeanor affected or genuine? How did she develop her affinity for fashion? And how many decades has she had that haircut, anyway? Let’s find out!

Wintour’s first job in fashion was as a shop girl at the trendy London chain Biba—a gig arranged by her influential father. What better job for someone so intensely aggrieved by crimes against fashion?

“Anna hated badly dressed people,” recalls [her friend Vivienne] Lasky. “We’d sit on Bond Street having tea at some trendy place and she’d comment on all the people. She was very judgmental. Everybody had to be perfect. She criticized their clothes. ‘How can people go out like that? Don’t they ever look in the mirror?’”

Shortly thereafter, on a trip to New York to explore potential fashion industry work, Wintour bunked with her mother’s cousin, who had once been Redbook’s fiction editor. Surely this was a meeting of the magazine minds? Not so much! Her relative recalls:

As it turned out, the magazine editor and the future magazine editor didn’t bond. “We had no connections over the fact of magazines,” she says. “Anna’s interest was solely fashion, and I was totally uninterested in fashion, so we really did not have a lot in common. I was interested in literature, writing, she was interested in clothing. It was fashion that eventually led Anna to magazines, not an interest in magazines.”

Wintour isn’t interested in writing? Well, that certainly explains Plum Sykes’ continued presence in Vogue.

Next week: Anna lands a job at Harper’s Bazaar, where a fellow editor soon discovers Wintour is “sometimes terrifying.” You think?

Wintour Wednesdays: "She Doesn't Really Like Women"

Welcome to Wintour Wednesdays, our peek inside the unauthorized biography Front Row—Anna Wintour: What Lies Beneath the Chic Exterior of Vogue’s Editor in Chief by Jerry Oppenheimer. Is Wintour’s glacial demeanor affected or genuine? How did she develop her affinity for fashion? And how many decades has she had that haircut, anyway? Let’s find out!

The book’s prologue immediately tackles a burning question: exactly how far removed from reality was The Devil Wears Prada? Turns out, not very much. Author Oppenheimer opens with a glance at a woman on her way to a job interview with Vogue, wearing the Wintour-mandated high heels and bare legs in the dead of winter.

It’s known among the fashion world cognoscenti that Anna is prone to hire based on dress and looks, let alone spike stories if someone is not photogenic enough for her. “If we’re talking about fashion editors, on the whole it’s important to me that they have a sense of style,” she’s intoned. And on the editorial side... “after a few months they will end up looking like Vogue. It just rubs off that way.” As a Vogue editor who knows and abides by Anna’s rules notes, “People who work here have to look a certain way. If somebody hasn’t changed their appearance within six months…something isn’t going right.”

While Wintour appears to be inflexible about her appearance standards, she’s certainly malleable when it comes to intimidation! The interviewing candidate explains:

 “Anna was very, very cool and contradicted everything I said. She would ask me questions and I would answer in the most intelligent way I could, and then she would contradict me. For instance, she said, ‘What would you do in the music section?’ I said something about ‘going very upscale.’ And she said, ‘We’re a populist magazine.’ [Ha!—Ed.] She asked me what I’d do with another section, and I told her I thought that deserved a populist view. She said, ‘We’re an upscale magazine.’ She just didn’t want me to win.”

Of course, our candidate could reassure herself—it wasn’t personal. According to her:

“The thing is, she doesn’t really like women, which is certainly curious for the editor of the world’s most influential fashion magazine for women.”

Curious, sure, but woefully evident in the pages of Vogue.

Next week: Anna’s childhood forays into fashion include modifying her school uniform (ooh, rebellious) and eschewing athletics lest strenuous exercise render her legs misshapen.