What comes to mind when you hear the name “Anna Wintour”? Her comparison to Miranda Priestly, the dragon woman from The Devil Wears Prada, comes up frequently. Others, however, focus on her intimidating appearance, which includes her chin-length hair and opaque sunglasses. Others jump right to her position as Vogue’s editor-in-chief.
Sincerity is told, and each of these statements contains some truth. But when it comes to this unique fashion character, these associations only partially convey the narrative.
Wintour has been riding shotgun on the celebrity roller coaster for decades, but she’s also a dead-on style icon in her own right and has kept a remarkably low profile. American Vogue, her publication, has a mind-blowing 12 million print readers and 1.2 million monthly web visitors.
1. On November 3, 1949, Anna Wintour was born.
2. She has served as the English editor-in-chief of American Vogue since 1988.
3. She was appointed artistic director of Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue, in 2013.
4. With her signature pageboy bob haircut and dark sunglasses, Wintour has established herself as a major player in the fashion industry. She is well-known for her keen sense of style and dedication to up-and-coming designers.
5. She is known as “Nuclear Wintour” because of her allegedly distant and demanding demeanour.
6. Charles Wintour, an editor of the London Evening Standard, is her father.
7. Her father asked her for advice on how to appeal to the generation’s youth in the newspaper.
8. Anna developed a passion for fashion as a youngster.
9. She began her fashion journalism career at two British publications.
10. She later relocated to the United States and worked for House & Garden and New York.
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11. She went back to her hometown for a year to revive British Vogue and then took over the franchise’s New York magazine, resurrecting what many considered a dying brand.
12. There has been discussion about her use of the magazine to influence the fashion industry.
13. There has been discussion about her usage of the magazine to influence the fashion industry.
14. Lauren Weisberger, a former personal assistant, penned the 2003 best-selling novel The Devil Wears Prada, which was later adapted into a popular movie starring Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, a fashion editor who is thought to be based on Wintour.
15. She was the subject of R.J. Cutler’s documentary The September Issue, which was released in 2009.
16. Her parents split in 1979 after getting married in 1940.
17. Wintour was given the name Anna Baker (née Gilkynson), a Pennsylvanian merchant’s daughter, as a maternal grandmother.
18. Her stepmother is Audrey Slaughter, a magazine editor who started sites like Honey and Petticoat.
19. Wintour’s great-great-great-grandmother was the late-18th-century author Lady Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of Devonshire, and his granduncle was Sir Augustus Vere Foster, the last Baronet of that name.
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20. She was one of four siblings. Gerald, her older brother, was a child when he lost his life in a car accident.
21. James and Nora Wintour, respectively, have worked for international NGOs and the local administration of London.
22. Wintour attended the independent North London Collegiate School where, on numerous occasions, she disobeyed the dress code by raising the hemlines of her skirts.
23. She started cutting her hair into a bob when she was 14 years old.
24. She became interested in fashion from reading issues of Seventeen that her grandmother received from America and seeing Cathy McGowan on Ready Steady Go!
25. She started dating well-connected older guys when she was 15 years old. She had a brief romance with 24-year-old Piers Paul Read. She and gossip columnist Nigel Dempster established themselves as regulars on the London club scene in their later teens.
26. As a result of her status, Wintour’s wardrobe is frequently scrutinised and copied.
27. Earlier in her career, she wore designer trousers with trendy T-shirts and vests. She changed to Chanel suits and miniskirts when she started working at Vogue as the creative director.
She wore them during both of her pregnancies, opening the skirts slightly in the back and wearing a blazer to provide coverage. In March 2013, the Guardian named Wintour “one of the fifty best-dressed over the 50s.”
28. Her ubiquitous sunglasses are actually corrective lenses, according to historian Jerry Oppenheimer, as she has vision loss similar to what her father experienced.
He spoke with a former coworker who recalled trying on her Wayfarers while she wasn’t there and feeling queasy. Wintour herself said of them.
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29.“I believe at this point they’ve become, you know, really armour,” saying that they enable her to keep her responses to a programme private.
She was recovering from the dissolution of her marriage and the change in the editorial team of the magazine when a friend and fellow editor remarked, “She’s not hiding behind her spectacles anymore. She’s having fun again right now.
30. Donna Karan attended fundraisers where she collaborated with Calvin Klein and Harvey Weinstein during Obama’s first term. When the former head of communications for Vogue resigned in 2013, Wintour was rumoured to be looking to employ someone with experience in politics.
Soon after, Wintour hired Hildy Kuryk, a former fundraiser for both Obama’s first campaign and the Democratic National Committee. She participated in Hillary Clinton’s lengthy list of rich donors, known as “Hillblazers,” who contributed to her 2016 presidential campaign.