Anna Wintour as Vogue Icon

0:02This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The Devil Wears Prada 2, which opens next month, may be the most anticipated sequel of the year. After 20 years, it brings Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci back with Meryl Streep in the immortal role of Miranda Priestly, the fashion editor inspired by Anna Wintour, the longtime editor-in-chief of Vogue. In September of last year, Anna joined me on the program to talk about a sea change at Vogue. She was stepping away from running the flagship American Edition, and she had just named the young editor Chloe Mal as head of editorial content.

0:48Wintour is still a defining presence at the company as editorial director of Vogue Editions worldwide and chief content officer of Condé Nast, which publishes The New Yorker as well. I've known Anna Wintour for quite a long time, and we met that September morning in our studios at One World Trade Center. Here I am, a lamb to the slaughter. It says exactly what's going to happen. How are you? Good. So Anna, we are talking on the day that Condé Nast announced that Chloe Mao is going to succeed you as editor of American Vogue. How do you feel? I feel great. I love Chloe. I'm very happy for her. She's going to do a brilliant job.

1:31We've worked together for well over a decade. But at the same time, she really had to prove herself during the interview process. We saw a lot of amazing, amazing candidates. And Chloe consistently came back with the clearest vision and the most original ideas and understanding of what a vogue in, well, I don't think we can talk in five, ten years anymore. In two years, it's going to look like. And I... What are the specifics? She understands a newsroom. She understands immediacy. She understands culture. She understands completely that fashion doesn't exist in a vacuum, that it's a result of many different forces, whether it's something that might be happening in music, or film or politically and wants to put it into that kind of a context.

2:25Plus, she has a great sense of humor. I mean, her story that she thought of this summer called Dog, I mean, it went through the roof with our numbers and it was so much fun just to look at. All those crazy dogs dressed up with earrings and beautiful collars and celebrities from all over the world were sending their dogs. So she has a really good balance about what works. Now, why step aside from American Vogue now? Have you been thinking about this for a long time? I have been thinking about it for some time. And it felt like this was the right time because we're seeing so much change in fashion.

3:05When we go off to the shows, well, actually, I think they start next week, I believe there's well over 14 new creative directors in very high-level positions all over Europe and some here. So it seemed like a good moment to bring in someone with a different perspective and a different generation who could look at things in a new way. Now, at first in 1988, you burst on the scene as the new Vogue editor by putting somebody on the cover with a pair of jeans on. In fact, I noticed that Chloe was wearing jeans. She was, yes. In her photograph on the Vogue website. Was she maybe signaling something?

3:49I think that picture was taken a while ago, but she looked great. And similarly to Chloe, I had been working at Vogue as creative director before I took the position at American Vogue and also British Vogue. So I also had some history. And I think that's a very helpful way to start a new job, to understand how things work, who the people are, how decisions are made. And maybe you want to do things in a different way. but just having that is a huge advantage. So you have this odd situation now. You are not leaving your office, your physical office. You've got two huge jobs at Condé Nast where you're the editorial director of, well, of everything.

4:35And you've got a lot going on, whether it's the Met Gala or your other interests in family and all this, but you're right there, and your successor is down the hall. and Chloe said this to the Times today, the truth is that no one's going to replace Anna. So you're going to be right down the hall and the Times wrote that both women have acknowledged the strangeness of this arrangement. How will this work? Well, I think I implicitly trust Chloe and I want her to succeed to the best possible degree. I think that she is beloved by her team. I think that she will require from all of us, not just me, from everybody and from our editors group, from everybody here at Condé Nast.

5:27I think she'll – and she's the kind of editor that welcomes that. She doesn't work in any way in isolation. She's very open. She's very communicative. Her office is always full of people. She's very outgoing. But will you be in her head is what I mean. In other words, will she be trying to edit to please you? I don't think so. I absolutely don't think so. I think she's very much her own person. She has her own point of view. How does it differ? She's, I think, she looks at things with a more, what's the right word? Not eccentric, quirky, unusual point of view. She comes at things from different angles.

6:11She's interested in fashion but not obsessed with it so that there are many levels that will weigh into her decisions. I think that she will not be drawn into, I don't like this word, but a fashionista conversation. I think that she will be able to step back and look at things in a very healthy context. Has the fashionista conversation dissipated and disappeared in the contemporary world? I think it exists very much in certain circles. And I think that what I love about Chloe is that she's an insider, but she's also an outsider. What you're saying is she doesn't want to be an Anna Mini-Me. No, not at all.

6:53And that was very clear during the interview process and all the conversations that we've had. She wants to be her own person. I think she's not interested in those kinds of comparisons. She just wants to be herself and show herself and prove herself and make news, as I'm sure she will. So when you took over Vogue, Vogue had this immensely central place in this very big business and in the fashion discussion. And now we live in an age of Instagram, TikTok, the technological democratization of fashion itself, and God knows what role AI is going to play. So how is her job different from yours? Well, I look on Vogue as being the world's biggest fashion influencer.

7:39If you look at our reach from a social perspective, American Vogue alone has well over 50 million followers. If you look at the numbers that we receive on our site or on our app or the way whatever we may be putting across any of our platforms are received or seen or heard, the influence is immeasurable. So I think in a way, Chloe has a much bigger platform than I had. When I came in, I always remember Alex Lieberman telling me – The editorial director in those days. Yes, editorial director. wonderful figure, my mentor and my boss for many years. He used to tell me that they would go to Jones Beach in the afternoons because there wasn't that much to do.

8:26Can you imagine that, David? I really cannot. So I don't think that Chloe will be spending any of her time at Jones Beach in the afternoon. But I actually think if I remember when I started at American Vogue, and it was solely a print publication with, you know, a few events and genteel sort of parties that we had to go to. Now she has all these different ways of talking to our audiences, whether it's through social or TikTok, TikTok or print or events, which are a huge part of what we think about today or, you know, any of the many, many ways that we reach our audiences. How amazing, how exciting, how interesting, how culturally relevant is it?

9:09And it's so fascinating to see how much Vogue means to our world. I mean, I was flooded with emails this morning. It does mean a lot to people within the fashion world and without. And it's a great honor and it's a great responsibility. You mentioned print. When I started in 1998 at The New Yorker, I thought I was about to lose my job within a month. Cy Newhouse, of course, owns the joint and ran Condé Nast completely and thoroughly in those days, asked to have lunch with me at his apartment. Usually we went to some restaurant. Yes. And I thought, well, this is a world record. You've really done it.

9:53And he took out... Was it a yellow pad? He took out a yellow pad, and we were losing money at that point. I won't say how much, but it was not insubstantial. And he said, you know, if we went from weekly to biweekly, we would save millions and millions of dollars and we would suddenly become profitable. And then he said something that I'll never forget. He said, but it's your decision. It was the editor's decision to make this very consequential. And I decided pretty quickly that that would signal, in fact, something terrible. Not only it would be terrible for the New Yorker, it would be terrible for businesses, that it would signal the life magazinization of the New Yorker.

10:35We live in a very different time now. The internet was not in play then. What does print mean going forward for Vogue? Chloe, in fact, mentioned that she wants to have fewer print editions. Why? Well, I think we all look at print as something that is collectible and something you might want to archive and hold on to. And I think it also has to represent a news-breaking moment. Like you need a reason to put somebody on the cover for any of the stories that you might be running inside. And I think that's what Chloe was talking about, that it has to feel in a way more important, more substantial, and separate from the day-to-day news-breaking stories that we put up on your site or our site.

11:26But it's not purely a decision about decline of print advertising or it's not a purely business decision. I think it's the right decision. And I think there's a lot of different factors that play into it. And obviously, it's something that we all need to sit down and talk about and figure out what the right path is going forward. But I think it comes from the idea that print has to feel more substantial and more important. I mean, it's our runway show. If you think about how many people actually go to a Vuitton fashion show, it's between 400 and 800 people. But then it goes out to millions and millions.

12:08Instantly by Instagram. Instantly on live stream, whatever it may be. And I think print has that same responsibility. You're giving a message. You're making news. You're giving your vision. But it doesn't necessarily have to be over and over again many, many times a year. I mean, I think most of the big designers probably have six or seven shows a year, which is already a lot. You're a very politically engaged person and a very politically aware person. And it's no news to you that the world right now is in so many ways in really bad condition. How do you make a case that fashion is important in the midst of all that?

12:47Well, I think fashion is always important. It's a question of self-expression and a statement about yourself and, you know, whether it's a loud logo you might choose to put on yourself or something with a color. So I think fashion can say so many different things. And forgive me, David, but how boring would it be if everybody was just wearing a dark suit and a white shirt all the time? I think people are individuals and they ought to be able to express themselves. And it's a form of creativity. And that's why we need fashion and we need great designers. For decades, you've been known as the editor with exacting control over every spread, every— Well, that's very much exaggerated.

13:31Is it? Yes. I don't buy that. You don't say yes or no on everything that's in vogue? Up to a point. I mean, you know, I oversee so many different vogues now that it's impossible to have that kind of detail. I think it's really important to surround yourself with people whom you admire and that you respect. I really rely on the editors that we have there to, I can say, I don't think this looks so great, but they can come right back and say, this is what will work in this culture. So what I mean is how deeply do you get into other Vogue's, other magazines, either here in the United States or around the world?

14:10Yeah, I mean, in terms of Vogue, I look at every, print issue before it goes to what's hypothetically called the press. And, you know, I will look at their sites. I can't understand all the languages. I look at all their social media, but it's, and I will make suggestions and call and say, are we sure about this or why aren't we doing that? But, you know, there's no way that you can keep up with every single platform across all the territories, but I certainly keep my eyes out. Did you ever feel like along the way, did you have a time or a year or a moment you think, enough with this? I can do a lot of things.

14:52I just, enough. I actually know, David, because I love what I do. And I grew up, as you know, in a family of journalists where we were always being dragged home from vacation holidays, as we would say in the UK, because some news was happening. And in those days, you couldn't do email or Zooms. You had to be there. My dad was someone who always had to be there. He had to be in the newsroom. And that was actually exciting in a way. And our house was full of journalists and politicians and interesting people. And I find that today just as exciting and just as interesting. And I'm always more interested in looking forward than looking back.

15:34I do think sometimes we spend too much time on nostalgia. How do you mean? I think people always ask, what was that based on or what was your inspiration? And sure, people have inspirations and they have unconscious thoughts in their heads. But true creative design, I'm talking about the fashion world, true creative designers. And I'm sure it's the same with your world. It's original. It comes from their mind, not from somebody else's mind. Maybe they had some influences, but the idea is theirs. And when I work with Andrew Bolton, who's the chief curator at the Metropolitan Museum, we work very closely together every year on the exhibitions.

16:19And it's so fascinating and exciting and interesting to see how his mind works and how the ideas form. And yes, he reads a lot. He looks at a lot. But in the end, the original thinking is entirely Andrew's. So to me, that's a great artist. I wonder how you felt when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrived at the Met Ball in a white dress slathered with the slogan, tax the rich. Yes. Well, I'll tell you a story about that, David. She was actually sitting at my table. And I stand in the receiving line. And I don't see the people arriving on the carpet. but I don't have a secret live stream being zoomed into my earphone.

17:06I'm just standing there shaking everybody's hands saying, thank you for coming, blah, blah, blah. So I said, thank you for coming, and she went by. And then I went up to her before we all sat down at the table. I said, I just love your dress because I'd only seen her from the front. And it wasn't until the next day that I understood what had happened. So fortunately, I had a wonderful evening. And when you saw it later, how did you feel? Well, you know, it's something going back to what we were talking about before. I think everybody uses fashion in different ways. And obviously that was something that was important to her.

17:48This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. And I'm speaking today with Anna Wintour. We'll continue in just a moment.

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21:04Years ago, when I was new at the job of editing a magazine, I asked one of Anna Wintour's deputies why she commanded such respect. The answer was this. It's because she knows what she wants. Over time, I learned what that meant. It wasn't that she knew everything or knew better than everybody, but she had a clear sense of what she wanted her publication to be about. And she had a determination, particularly now when the media business is unpredictable, to put it mildly, how to figure out the future, to make things work, to make mistakes and yet try again. Wintour comes from a distinguished journalism family.

21:43Her brother is an editor and reporter, and her father was editor of a London newspaper. He helped steer Anna into a career in fashion, and she began working as a teenager. Your father was at the London Evening Standard. Yes. Your brother, is he back from Iran? He just came back, yes, safely. Thank you. Is that The Guardian? Yeah. So journalism is in your blood, and you found your place in it, God knows. The most interesting part of any biography for me is not the later big triumphs, as interesting as they can be, but how somebody becomes themselves, in a sense how they invent themselves. When you think about that, how you became the Anna Wintour that at least the public knows and understands, where do you think that all came from?

22:31I think I was so lucky, as we were discussing before in my upbringing and meeting all these people and knowing that I wanted to work in journalism, in media, but being very aware of my father's success in Fleet Street, as it was then called, in Fleet Street and not wanting to be part of his world and trying to make my own mark and filling out all those stupid school forms that you have to do and asking my dad, well, what shall I fill in when you write what you want to be? This is a true story. He said, well, you just write. You want to be editor of Vogue. No. Yes. Age what? I don't know, 13? So I wrote that in, and then I felt confident.

23:13And yes, this was something that I could work towards. And the other thing, my first job was working in London. Like, there's no money. There's no staff. There's no teams. You have to learn how to do everything. What was the job? I worked, my first job, I worked at Harper's Queen and I was in the fashion department and you had to cover the market, go on shoots, write the captions, lay it out, go to events, go to the shows. It was just, you know, the original sort of multitasker. And I think that. Did you have to know how to operate a needle and thread? Yeah, I was never any good at that. Never any good at that.

23:51Yes, awful. But so when I came to the States and, you know, there was a shoe editor and an underwear editor and a fabric editor. It was also siloed. I felt very confident because I sort of knew how to do everything. And that was the best training. But you determined your final, not final destination as it turns out. It was helpful. At that early age, I'm going to be the editor of Vogue, which is a little bit like saying I'm going to play shortstop for the Yankees. And that was Derek Jeter at 13. Well, it was a goal. It wasn't, you know, it was a goal to work towards. And obviously there were many ups and downs along the way, including getting fired from Harper's Bazaar, because I was told I would never understand the American market.

24:37Tell me about the firing. It was very brief. It was very brief. Very brief. The conversation? The conversation was? Very, very brief. What was the start? We've all done it. How do you do it? How do I – I try and be kind and thoughtful and, you know, listen to what people have to say. But I was not given that. I was basically told to leave. So – but I think everyone should be fired once. You've probably never been fired, David. I've only had two jobs so far, so far. But it helps you get everything into proportion and pick myself up and eventually landed at New York Magazine where my multitasking really came into full use because there wasn't anyone there that understood anything that I was doing.

25:29and I was very lucky to work for Ed Kozner, who was a wonderful editor and gave me free reign, and that's where I caught Alexander Lieberman, the editorial director of Condé Nast's Eye, and then I moved over to American Vogue. I hope this is not a sexist question. Maybe we could ask it of men, too. I hope we do. How did you develop your look and why? Well, for my hair, it was always pretty much this way. It's not a Louise Brooks influence? Some British hairdresser decided they were going to experiment on me, and they cut it into three layers. And it was honestly the worst haircut you've ever seen in your entire life.

26:09So I think I wore a hat for a year. And then after that, I resolved not to cut my hair except this way ever again. And, I mean, the glasses just – because I'm very short-sighted. But they also helped me get through situations. Were you bored to death? You said that on me. I did. I think I'm going to take it up. Another thing that you're known for is your ability to do about 3 ,000 things in a given day. Give me how your days typically go. When do you get up? What do you do? And how is it carried out? Well, I get up really early, 4.35 o 'clock. And I read online the papers, all the English papers and the Times.

26:56and then I have a lovely walk through Washington Square Park where you see a very interesting slice of life and go to the gym, and then I run back, and then— You were a runner when you were a kid, right? Yeah, I was. A good one. Yeah, my grandfather was a very, very fast runner. He ran for Harvard, and I was always being encouraged to run, to go into serious training, but I just didn't take that path. It was the 60s in London, so I took another pass. I took another pass, many other pass. And then, you know, I go to the office, and then the day starts. And then the day starts.

27:38And you've said you'd never write a book about your life. Never. Why is that? Never. I don't think I'm that interesting. Okay, that's where you're wrong. Thank you, David. But I really, I don't, I just, it's not a story I want to tell. Because it's too personal? It digs too deep or is it you're bored with it? You're bored with the past. The past is done and I can't rewrite it. And of course, there are lots of wonderful things about it too, but it's just not something that is of any remote interest to me. Are you going to write the story of your life, David? I don't think so. There you go. I'd like to learn something new, like Chinese or something.