After 37 years as Vogue’s editor in chief, Anna Wintour is formally stepping down. The style icon will not be retiring altogether; as an alternative, she’s going to stay on because the writer’s international chief content material officer in addition to Vogue’s international editorial director, per CNN.
It’s, nonetheless, the top of an period — one marked by Met Galas, groundbreaking (and generally controversial) journal covers, and moments that cemented the EIC’s place in popular culture historical past. From being dubbed “Nuclear Wintour” by tabloids within the ’90s for her icy administration model to inspiring one in every of Meryl Streep’s most well-known roles, Wintour’s reign at Vogue has formed not solely trend however how the world views it.
Anna Wintour turns into a tabloid fascination
Previous to her reign as editor in chief of Vogue, Wintour labored throughout totally different magazines at Condé Nast, together with Home & Backyard and the U.Okay. version of Vogue. It was throughout her time on the U.Okay. trend journal, the place she changed beloved editor Bea Miller, that British tabloids gave her the titles “Nuclear Wintour” and “Wintour of Our Discontent” — nods to her fame for being chilly, demanding and unapologetically robust on her employees.
In 1997, the British-born Wintour pushed again towards the nicknames in a bit for the Guardian, writing that whereas journalists portrayed her as a “depraved lady of metal,” she solely recalled letting go of “two or three” workers throughout her time on the journal.
Wintour on the nineteenth Annual CFDA Trend Awards at Lincoln Heart in New York Metropolis. (KMazur/WireImage)
“There was a comfy however mildly eccentric environment at British Vogue, which, after my time in New York, struck me as old-fashioned,” Wintour recalled. “It additionally appeared out of step with the quick growing social and political adjustments that have been thundering via Britain within the eighties, underneath Margaret Thatcher. I felt the comfortable strategy was not attentive to clever girls’s altering lives. So I made a decision to infuse the journal with a little bit of American worldliness, even toughness.”
Whereas Wintour could not have appreciated the nicknames nor agreed with their accuracy, it’s clear that her tough-as-nails fame solidified a sure picture of the ice queen trend editor — a picture that Wintour would carry along with her all through her profession.
Wintour goes rogue at Vogue
In 1988, Wintour debuted her first cowl of Vogue — and it shocked the style world. Mannequin Michaela Bercu wore a $10,000 Christian Lacroix couture jacket with a bejeweled cross together with $50 Guess denims, photographed outdoors in pure mild. The informal tone of the photograph was a stark change for the journal; even Wintour herself didn’t initially anticipate to run the photograph on the quilt.
“It was so in contrast to the studied and stylish close-ups that have been typical of Vogue’s covers again then, with tons of make-up and main jewellery,” Wintour wrote of the quilt in a 2012 Vogue piece, including that the photograph “broke all the principles.”
Wintour’s first Vogue cowl stirred controversy and questions however finally turned iconic. (Peter Lindbergh/Vogue)
The mannequin “wasn’t you, and worse, she had her eyes nearly closed,” Wintour defined. “Her hair was blowing throughout her face. It regarded straightforward, informal, a second that had been snapped on the road, which it had been, and which was the entire level.”
Wintour mentioned that the quilt led to all kinds of incorrect interpretations, together with that it was some type of “spiritual assertion.” None have been true. As an alternative, she wrote, “I had simply checked out that image and sensed the winds of change. And you may’t ask for extra from a canopy picture than that.”
‘The Satan Wears Prada’ hits theaters
In 2006, The Satan Wears Prada, a novel written by former Wintour assistant Lauren Weisberger, was tailored right into a film starring Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. Instantly, individuals assumed that Streep’s character Miranda Priestly — EIC of the fictional Runway journal — was a thinly veiled caricature of Wintour.
Wintour has not mentioned a lot publicly concerning the portrayal of Priestly, an icy, calculating and wildly demanding boss. The truth is, Anna: The Biography creator Amy Odell wrote that when the EIC discovered that Weisberger had offered The Satan Wears Prada, “she mentioned to [managing editor Laurie] Jones, ‘I can’t bear in mind who that woman is,’” per Leisure Weekly.
Lately, the movie — for which a sequel is within the works — acquired a West Finish musical adaptation, which Wintour attended in December 2024. Chatting with the BBC after the present, she mentioned it’s “for the viewers and for the individuals I work with to determine if there are any similarities between me and Miranda Priestly.”
The Satan Wears Prada will not be the one piece of popular culture to apparently pay tribute to the famed fashionista. She was additionally parodied on the present Ugly Betty with the character Fey Sommers. Interpretations of Wintour, all the time along with her signature large sun shades, have additionally been seen on Saturday Night time Stay and The Simpsons.
Wintour additionally appeared as herself in 2018’s Ocean’s 8, which was a couple of group of ladies pulling off a heist on the Met Gala.
‘The September Difficulty’ brings Wintour’s work to life
In 2009, R.J. Cutler’s documentary The September Difficulty adopted Wintour as she and her staff crafted the September 2007 version of Vogue — on the time, the biggest challenge to this point. It peeled again the curtain on working for Wintour, revealing her exacting requirements and intense management model on the middle of the high-pressure world of trend publishing.
In a assessment of the documentary by Roger Ebert, the late movie critic wrote, “There can’t have been a web page she wasn’t concerned with. This appears to be a girl who is worried with one factor above all: The implementation of her opinion.”
Wintour makes her mark on the Met Gala
Trend’s greatest night time wouldn’t be fairly the identical with out the affect of Wintour. In 1995, she took over as chair of the Met Gala, remodeling the annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork’s Costume Institute from a modest society dinner into a worldwide popular culture phenomenon.
Wintour revamped the visitor listing, inviting A-list celebrities, designers, fashions and leisure trade energy gamers. This coincided with the rise of the movie star stylist, placing these behind-the-scenes trend gamers on show simply as a lot as the celebs sporting their outfits. Wintour helped elevate popular culture icons like Rihanna, whose outfit selections have change into among the many most anticipated on the pink carpet.
Wintour attends the 2025 Met Gala. (John Shearer/WireImage)
In 2015, Wintour made headlines with the Met Gala as soon as once more. “China: By means of the Trying Glass” was one of the attended exhibitions — but additionally a extremely controversial one, as Wintour and her staff have been accused of selling appropriation and exhibiting Jap tradition via a Western lens.
Nonetheless, the Met Gala has continued to push cultural dialog ahead, because it did this 12 months with its theme “Superfine: Tailoring Black Model,” which spotlighted Black designers and Black id. In Might, Wintour instructed E! Information of the exhibit, “It’s about optimism and hope and group. I hope that many, many individuals come and see it.”
