Anna Wintour’s legacy and who might replace her as Vogue editor

Dame Anna Wintour had just sent her first edition of US Vogue in October 1988 when the magazine received a telephone call from the printers. They had seen the coverage before the problem and had a question: “Was there an error?”

The cover, the first of Lady Anna as editor -in -chief, included a less known model, Michaela Bercu, smiling on the camera in an elegant Christian Lacroix couture jacket.

But two things were particularly different from habit: the model was held outside, in the street and wore a pair of jeans. The printers were half knocked out there had a kind of error there.

“I couldn’t blame them,” recalls Dame Anna later. “It was so different from the close-ups studied and elegant that were typical of vogue blankets at the time, with tons of makeup and major jewelry. This one has violated all the rules.”

The jeans had actually been a last minute addition, after the skirt that Bercu was supposed to wear does not adapt properly. But the planned message was clear: the cover star was an ordinary and daily girl – and it was a new era for Vogue.

The arrival of Dame Anna and the desire to challenge congresses, “reported a revolution” in the magazine, according to Oscar Holland of CNN Style, which praised its first issue of “Warm and easy to live”.

After two years in charge of British Vogue, Dame Anna had been hired for the American edition precisely to make things happen. She was responsible for ensuring that the magazine did not lose his advantage while he was heading around the 1990s.

During the decades that followed, Dame Anna “directed the title of Glossy Print Editions featuring the first models and then grunge, via the stars of celebrity and reality culture, in an era online of social media and digital publication”, noted the editor of the Harriet Walker fashion.

But this week, Lady Anna announced that she would return as editor -in -chief of Vogue after 37 years.

She will remain the director of the contents of the publisher Condé Nast, a role to which she was appointed in 2020, which means that she will supervise the content of Vogue, as well as the other titles of the company such as GQ, Wired and Tatler.

But while she can stay with the company, her departure as editor -in -chief marks the end of an extraordinary era for the magazine, which has helped define pop culture.

Lady Anna will be remembered for “the greatest sense of informality that she brought to her first vogue blankets” and the tone they have given, explains Dr. Kate Strasdin, lecturer at the Falmouth Fashion and Textile Institute.

“She also launched the image of the coverage of celebrities, positioning popular culture under the famous Vogue banner.”

During her first year as editor -in -chief, Dame Anna put Madonna on the cover, the first celebrity to have presented, as part of her wider mission to merge the words of fashion and entertainment.

“She was the first to make fashion a global cultural industry,” said Marian Kwei, stylist and contributor to Vogue, BBC Radio 4. But, she adds, Dame Anna “also showed that fashion could be more accessible.”

“She removed the elitism that was in fashion, and brought democratization, and made fashion this party that everyone was invited.”

However, it was not always smooth. In 1993, the Peta animal rights group occupied its office to protest against Dame Anna’s decision to wear fur, which she no longer does.

There were undoubtedly also occasional cultural schemes. The coverage of LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen in April 2008 sparked a debate, remembers Dr. Strasdin, as to whether he has strengthened the former stereotypes of the race and power.

More recently, Dame Anna has faced a much more existential challenge – how to move Vogue to the digital age with considerably increased competition.

In 2018, designer Philip Plein compared the number of Vogue readers with the number of Instagram followers that Kim Kardashian had.

“So what is most important today for a brand?” He asked. “This is an interesting question.”

In a rapid media landscape, some industry observers may wonder if Dame Anna has been quietly invited to resign by Conde Nast to make way for fresh blood.

But Alexandra Shulman, former editor -in -chief of British Vogue, said that she doubted it, telling BBC News: “I don’t think there is a new vision is necessary.

“Anna clearly indicated that she remains in control at American Vogue … So I think she will always have the last word.”

Shulman added that it was probably Lady Anna herself would choose her successor from Vogue.

Dame Anna is as known for her own image as the aesthetics she has created in her magazines. His fabric sunglasses and her haircuts jostled are partly what helped her become a figure also instantly recognizable.

She told Katie Razzall de la BBC last year, a little cryptically, that her sunglasses “help me to see and they help me not see … They help me be seen and not to be seen”.

The publisher has always been something of an enigma, and will be well aware that the conversation and speculation that surrounds him are no longer of interest.

But she played focusing on her image, saying: “I don’t really think about it. What really interests me is the creative aspect of my work.”

His reputation as a editor -in -chief has, of course, was widely debated, notes Dr. Strasdin.

“The fashion industry is traditionally a space where ego and creativity can compete spectacular,” she said, adding that documentaries such as the September issue and the first Monday in May “offer an overview of the strangeness of this world”.

Over time, Dame Anna has gradually become an important figure not only fashionable, but also to Western culture. She is regularly referenced in the words of hip-hop, with Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z and Ye (formerly Kanye West) among the artists who checked her.

“I believe what she did,” reflects Kwei, “is sculpted a space in fashion, culture, time, the story that we can never surpass”.

Dame Anna was the loose inspiration of Miranda Priestly, the editor -in -chief of Demon magazine in Devil Wears Prada, represented on the screen by Meryl Streep.

The editor -in -chief seemed to look occasionally to the comparison, and last year attended the gala evening for adaptation on stage.

But asked if she thought that people were afraid of her in real life, Lady Anna replied: “I hope no.”

The impact of Lady Anna can be seen in all kinds of ways, including, for example, to the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos the marriage to Lauren Sánchez in Venice this weekend.

“She created this moment and almost created this brand,” said the former editor -in -chief of Sun, David Yelland, at the BBC. “It was when she put Lauren Sancehz on the front of Vogue in 2023, that the Bezos / Sanchez brand started.

“She did the same with Kim Kardashian and she did the same with the Trumps. When she put Ivana on the front in 1990, it was incredibly controversial, people called her sticky, but it was the beginning of the Trump brand in the top of the world society. So, she is not only a publisher, she is the high priest of our time.”

The question of the successor of Dame Anna is complicated. “This is a difficult time for the printed media,” said Dr. Strasdin. “Vogue social media platforms are often under fire for the apparently relentless celebrity content that criticisms denounce as diluting the mission of Vogue.

“But a strong digital presence is vital. Eva Chen, As director of fashion partnerships for Instagram, brings this expertise. She has long been a regular at Met Gala and must be on the long list that I should think. “”

“”Chioma Nnadi Must also be in the running, “she continues.” She is from London, and has spent the last two years to direct the editorial content at British Vogue. She is the protégé of Wintour and he feels like waiting in the wings. “”

The other possible candidates, according to the editor of the Daily Mail fashion, Margaret Abrams, include the former Teen Vogue chief Amy AstleyWho always works for Condé Nast edit another magazine.

Editor -in -chief of Vogue Chloé Schamasound name Chloe trunkeditor -in -chief of the Vogue website, or even the own daughter of Dame Anna, film producer Bee Shaffer Carrozzini, could also be within the framework.

“As always, fashion is considered superficial and economically precious,” said Dr. Strasdin.

“Anna Wintour had to walk on the tightrope for maintaining relevance with regard to style at the same time as fashion had to undergo a reassessment in relation to sustainability, plagiarism and working conditions.

“I think these are the very real concerns that his successor will have to navigate.”