Anna Wintour
Has been editor-in-chief of the U S edition of Vogue since 1988.
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If you look at any great fashion photograph out of context, it will tell you just as much about what's going on in the world as a headline in The New York Times.
Anna happens to be a friend of mine, a fact which is of absolutely no help in coping with the cold panic that grips me whenever we meet.
You either know fashion or you don't.
Fashion's not about looking back. It's always about looking forward.
In a sea of women's glossies that purport to be about fashion but publish earnest articles chronicling the author's quest for self-actualization, Vogue stands apart. The voluminous fashion pages are arty, original, and sophisticated, shot by talented photographers like Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn, and Steven Meisel. Most of us read Vogue not with the intention of buying the wildly expensive clothes, but because doing so educates our eye and hones our taste, similar to the way eating gourmet food refines the palate. This is a pleasure enabled by Wintour's ruthless aesthetic, her refusal to participate in the democratizing tendency of most of her competitors. To deny her that privilege is to deny her readers the privilege of fantasy in the form of beautifully photographed Paris couture
The notion that Anna would want something done "now" and not "shortly" is accurate.
When I was a media reporter, there were many high-profile editors, and God knows they had big egos, but you could still get them on the phone ... Remnick, Carter, Fuller, even Martha Stewart. But Wintour? She just never talked to peons like us ... It was beneath her. And all the while I'm thinking, "Who is this skank?" She plays up this aristocratic, Marie Antoinette "Let them eat cake" routine, but, excuse me, can I get some proof that she holds a title of nobility that goes back to the 13th century? No. All she does is edit a magazine. That's it. So what's with the royalty routine? . . . I mean, for Christ's sake, the woman slept with Bob Marley, one of the most soulful people ever to walk the face of the earth. If that didn't spiritualize her, nothing would ... Wintour will be escorted by eunuchs to a place in hell run entirely by large rats.
"[The democratization of luxury] means more people are going to get better fashion. And the more people who can have fashion, the better.
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