Seriously, how can you not respect Anna Wintour? Notice, I refrained from using the word, “love. If there’s anything we can take away from her 60 minutes with Morley Safer, it’s that Anna is not lovable nor does she wish to be known as such. Anna is the ultimate professional. She’s calm collected and very cool….possibly a little too cool. As Morley puts it, in the media, “She’s been portrayed as Darthvader in a frock or as harshly as nuclear Wintour. Or is she really just peaches and cream with a touch of arsenic? Hilarious.
I personally loved this interview. Not because it was particularly revealing, because it wasn’t. Not because of the portrayal of the fashion industry, because yet again the “Devil wears Prada stereotype was reinforced. But, mainly because it was great to hear “the most powerful woman in fashion address the rumours that surround her mysterious persona.
Morley tackles all the obvious questions, such as- why she insists on wearing sunglasses inside? Is she really a bitch? And are her staff not allowed to utter a word to her majesty when inside the elevator? Her answers are pretty honest. We discover that the glasses hide her emotions including when “she’s bored out of her mind. She tries not to be a bitch but does demand excellence and hates mediocrity and the rumours about her ruling the Voguettes with an iron fist for 21 years are, “completely exaggerated. “I have so many people here…that have worked with me for 15, 20 years…If I’m such a bitch, they must they must really be a glutton for punishment because they’re still here,” she tells Morley.Very true Anna, very true.
However, you get a strong sense that Anna who receives an allowance for hair and makeup every day and a rumoured $200,000 annual clothing allowance, is being very diplomatic about the fear she instils in her staff. Especially, as the interview then cuts to a clip with the fabulous editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley who tells Morley, “Let’s say that Anna can be intimidating. I think that’s her armour, to intimidate. To give the people the sense that she is in charge.” He continues, “She is not a person who’s going to show you her emotions ever. She’s like a doctor….Some of us can’t cope with that, we need to be loved.”
Oh, Andre I love you. At the risk of sounding like a gushing teenager, he’s oozes Anna’s “no-nonsense attitude, yet he seems so approachable. Morley if you’re reading can we have a 60 minutes with Andre please?!
Designers, Alexander Wang, Karl Lagerfeld, Nicholas Ghesquiere and John Galliano all make an appearance. Lagerfeld bestows praise on Anna saying , “sometimes she is a little tough. But I like tough people, and I like tough woman. Meanwhile Galliano admits that Anna was instrumental in his career, “Oh my goodness, in all my success, I mean, without her support I certainly wouldn’t be at the house of Dior today,”
Morley gently drops in a couple of catty remarks that are sure to ruffle a few feathers. Most notably, he depicts the runway models as, “angry as they are emaciated, describes Lagerfeld as favouring “the Dracula look this season and on Galliano he comments “some might think he needs a better tailor. Miaow!
The interview concludes with that all important topic – the day that she’ll eventually have to hang up her hat at Vogue. Morley asks if she’ll go quietly when the time comes. Anna smiles and replies, “certainly, very quietly.
Yes, respect Anna we must. She could and should write a book about personal branding. She’s successfully transformed herself into the female version of her infamous father and newspaper editor Charles Wintour aka “Chilly Charlie – as she fondly refers to him in the interview , who was notorious for his tough and icy cold reputation…..
Can you imagine US Vogue without Anna? I definitely can’t, and I’m not sure I want to. However the time is coming boys and girls. So prepare ourselves, we must!
