Anna Wintour


Anna Wintour

Wintour in 2024
Born (1949-11-03) 3 November 1949 (age 75)
Hampstead, London, England
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
United States
EducationNorth London Collegiate School
Occupation(s)Editor-in-Chief, Vogue
Artistic Director, Condé Nast
Global Chief Content Officer, Condé Nast
Global Editorial Director, Vogue
Years active1975–present
EmployerCondé Nast
Notable credit(s)Editorial assistant, Harpers & Queen, Harper's Bazaar; fashion editor, Viva, Savvy, New York; creative director, U.S. Vogue; editor-in-chief, British Vogue and House & Garden
PredecessorGrace Mirabella
Board member ofMetropolitan Museum of Art
Spouses
(m. 1984; div. 1999)
(m. 2004; sep. 2020)
Children2
Parent(s)Charles Wintour
Eleanor Trego Baker
RelativesPatrick Wintour (brother)
Francesco Carrozzini (son-in-law)
Signature

Dame Anna Wintour CH DBE (born 3 November 1949) is the English editor-in-chief of American Vogue, a position she has held since 1988.

Life

Anna Wintour stopped going to school at 16 and started her career in fashion. She worked on magazines in America called New York and Home & Garden. She then went back to Britain and worked on a British magazine known as Vogue. She later worked on the American version, making them both more popular and successful. Wintour supports young fashion designers and is sometimes called "Nuclear Wintour" because of her demanding personality.

Media

The Devil Wears Prada

It is thought that Anna Wintour was the inspiration behind the demanding editor, Miranda Priestly, in the novel The Devil Wears Prada. The author of the book, Lauren Weisberger, had worked as the personal assistant of Anna Wintour at Vogue. It has been suggested that the setting and Priestly were based on Vogue and Wintour, but Weisberger denies this, and says that Wintour is given her own appearance near the end of the book.

The similarities between Priestly and Wintour are:

  • They both have two children
  • They both serve on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Miranda Priestly is a mean person who makes impossible demands of the people who work for her,[1] and Wintour is also a very strict boss.

Before the book started selling, Wintour told the New York Times, "I always enjoy a great piece of fiction. I haven't decided whether I am going to read it or not."[2]

Ugly Betty

It is also said that a character in the TV series of Ugly Betty is based on Wintour. The character Fey Sommers, is very similar to Anna Wintour:

  • They both have a bob haircut
  • They both wear sunglasses indoors
  • Their surnames are both homophones for seasons (Sommers=Summer, Wintour=Winter)
  • They were both targeted by animal rights activists for using fur in their fashion
  • Both Sommers and Wintour were involved in some way with fashion magazines. (Sommers with MODE, Wintour with Vogue).

Wintour is also mentioned in Ugly Betty when Wilhelmina Slater is going to get a better job at MODE (the magazine) after Bradford Meade is arrested. She does not accept a lunch invitation from Anna Wintour, saying she should have called back in 1998, not 2007.

Personal life

Politics

Wintour has been a supporter of the Democratic Party going back to Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate run and John Kerry's 2004 presidential run and serving Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 presidential runs as a lot of contributions. In 2008 and 2012, she co-hosted fundraisers with Sarah Jessica Parker, the latter being a 50-person, $40,000-a-plate dinner at Parker's West Village town house with Meryl Streep, Michael Kors, and Trey Laird, an advertising executive, among the attendees. She has also teamed with Calvin Klein and Harvey Weinstein on fundraisers during Obama's first term and Donna Karan has been amongst the attendees.[3]

References

  1. Weisberger, Lauren; The Devil Wears Prada, Broadway Books, New York 2003, ISBN 0-7679-1476-7, p145
  2. Carr, David; February 17, 2003; Anna Wintour Steps Toward Fashion's New Democracy; The New York Times; retrieved December 10, 2006.
  3. Peters, Jeremy W., "Power Is Always in Vogue", The New York Times, 15 June 2012. Retrieved 8 January 2014.

Other websites