Like her or loathe her, you can’t love fashion without recognizing the indelible and far reaching power of Anna Wintour.
WSJ magazine writer Joshua Levine interviewed the editrix at the helm of US Vogue and several of her closest confidantes (Marc Jacobs, S.I. Newhouse, Harvey Weinstein), to document how exactly Anna influences everything from fashion to celebrity to global culture:
The summary: if Anna’s in your corner, you can, like Michael Kors, go from bankruptcy to sales of over $1 billion. You can, like Marc Jacobs, go from most trashed to most lauded designer in the industry (check his CFDA award this year). Or you can, like New York’s fashion industry, go from deficits to double digit sales with a Wintour conceived Fashion’s Night Out. Basically, Anna’s the bomb.
Jacobs says, “She gets such a bad rap. She stands by the people she believes in, and if you’re not one of those people, perhaps you take a different view.” S.I. Newhouse, citing Vogue as Conde Nast’s most profitable publication says, “There can be no greater role than being editor of Vogue. I hope she’s here 10 years from now, 20 years from now.” In the words of the author, “Anna’s army gives her a reach that far exceeds her grasp as a magazine editor, not to mention a deceptively potent economic punch.”
Wintour with Karl Lagerfeld and Daphne Guinness
The article is very long, but it’s worth a gander. Read it here.
March 23, 2011 4:15 pm
Gosh, she’s cute…
March 23, 2011 5:13 pm
I detest this woman
March 23, 2011 5:16 pm
i love her…she gets the job done!
March 23, 2011 5:23 pm
shes such a legend!
March 23, 2011 5:46 pm
Anne gets a bad rap because she doesnt let everyone in. She is the cool kid at the head of the table and everyone wants to sit next to her. I love she has the quality she supports people and their products she actually believes in verse other non quality garments. I think she is doing an amazing job now if she could be an advocate from more african american models.
March 23, 2011 6:17 pm
Love Anna Wintour! She IS the bomb! I hope I can meet her one day. I may faint though lol.
March 23, 2011 6:18 pm
Anna Wintour mostly has white chicks on Vogue America i am really disappointed with the lack of diversity on her front covers. Now a days celebs are on the covers there was a time when models were on the front cover.
March 23, 2011 7:49 pm
Got nothing but love for Anna. She is tough and in this world you have to tough to be the best.
March 23, 2011 8:18 pm
she has sooo much power in the fashion world its crazy. shes like the president of fasion. theres also a documentory that came out a while back about her making an issue of Vogue and its called the September Issue, it was pretty good.
March 23, 2011 8:47 pm
I will always LOOOVE Anna
March 24, 2011 12:57 am
MY GOD….THAT IS ONE POWERFUL WOMAN! I HAVE RESPECT FOR ANNA ALL DAY!
March 24, 2011 1:22 am
Girl power, whoot!
Interesting… does Anna Wintour set the trends (i.e. celebrity covers vs. model covers) or is her ability to change with the times the reason she’s still on top?
March 24, 2011 11:52 am
i think it’s irritating that so much power in the fashion industry rests on one person. and thanks to her suppport, a pervert like terry richardson is still working and not blacklisted like he should be. i’ve also heard that to work in vogue offices it’s preferable for women to be skinny to the point of being emaciated. not to mention the total whitewashing of vogue during her tenure and the boring trend of celebrities on the cover instead of professional models.
March 24, 2011 5:26 pm
I <3 Anna, her power goes far beyond fashion and she is guarded for a reason. I fell in love with her all over again when I saw the September Issue. One of her closet confidants is a black American man, Andre Leon Talley, the former editor at large for Vogue. In addition she supported and employed a very young talented black stylist, I dont remember his name but he was awesome. The rationale behind putting celebrities on the cover was based on economics I belive, Americans simply will buy more mags with celebrities on them as opposed to models. I think models are more beautiful honestly but I guess they dont move units.
March 24, 2011 11:53 pm
i know she works with andre leon talley. it’s called tokenism. most of the people she works with behind the scenes are white and most of the women on covers and in the editorials of american vogue are white as well, to the point that it was whiter then the 1970′s and 1980′s . and are you sure that the constant and stale barrage of celebrity covers is something that is solely based on economics? or is it something that we were influenced into liking by people with omnipotent power over trends and the fashion industry like anna wintour? i seem to remember before the celebrity cover craze there was quite a long era of super models who most certainly had influence and moved units.
March 25, 2011 9:22 am
[...] WSJ Magazine. “Like her or loathe her, you can’t love fashion without recognizing the indelible and far reaching power of Anna Wintour,” says Fashion Bomb Daily. “The summary: if Anna’s in your corner, you can, like [...]
March 26, 2011 8:44 pm
As much as I admire a woman with her power and influence, I’m still disturbed at the lack of black models in the issues of Vogue. I’m 100% sure that if she began to regularly place black models in her magazine (after reading the WSJ article) the fashion industry would not be as racist as it is today. Saying that she admires the First Lady Michelle Obama to me really isn’t much of a response in questioning her prejudices. It clearly shows in her mag.