Anna Wintour Just Stepped Down. Let’s Talk About The Power, The Image, And The System She Built

Anna Wintour ran Vogue for 37 years. That’s longer than astir radical person kept a telephone number. Or a therapist. Or, let’s beryllium honest, a committedness of immoderate kind. She shaped planetary fashion, redefined the beforehand row, and made the Met Gala what it is today.

But her bequest isn’t conscionable astir influence; it’s besides astir control. She’s been called powerful, brilliant, intolerable to read... and besides elitist, exclusionary, and retired of touch. Under her reign, Vogue acceptable intolerable standards for who gets to beryllium seen arsenic "stylish" and who doesn’t.

Still, whether you admired her, feared her, oregon both, Anna Wintour wasn’t conscionable portion of the manner system. For astir 4 decades, she was the system. But present that she’s stepping down, I privation to speech astir the bob. And the sunglasses. And the floral dresses. And the coats truthful crisp they could chopped done awkward tiny talk.

Because portion everything successful manner changed—designers, trends, silhouettes, adjacent the manufacture itself—Anna’s look didn't. Not once. Not adjacent a little.

She wore the aforesaid azygous with subject precision for decades. Not to acceptable in. Not to travel trends. But to go thing bigger than a person. She became a human logo. And somehow, that made her adjacent scarier (and cooler). Let’s interruption it down.

1. The bob that could withhold oculus interaction and approvals.

2. Sunglasses everywhere, due to the fact that feelings are optional.

Translation: she wasn’t hiding her eyes; she was hiding her reactions. That’s next-level affectional control. She turned a brace of Chanel shades into a powerfulness move.

Sure, determination person been a few rare sightings of her without them—like, literal minutes wherever we caught a glimpse of her bare-eyed. But adjacent astatine those aforesaid events, she'd usually popular backmost up with the sunglasses backmost on, similar she remembered she had a bequest to protect.

Honestly? I benignant of privation to effort it adjacent clip I’m astatine an lawsuit I hate.

3. Florals for Spring? Groundbreaking. Florals forever? Unstoppable.

4. Coats built for soundless judgment.

5. The Sit. You cognize the one.

There are a batch of almighty radical successful fashion. But nary of them are instantly recognizable from the backmost of a blurry runway photograph similar Anna is. She is much of a silhouette that means: “Fashion’s astir to begin.” You tin formal up arsenic her for Halloween and everyone volition get it.

She doesn’t conscionable have a look, she’s built a full myth astir it. And the chaotic part? While everyone other is engaged reinventing themselves each season, Anna’s retired present saying, “Nah, I’m good,” and inactive moving the full industry. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t power it up. She doubles down.

And that’s benignant of the thing; she was the establishment. The rulebook. The velvet rope. While her power shaped manner globally, it besides reinforced the aforesaid gatekeeping that kept it feeling closed disconnected to anyone who didn’t acceptable a precise constrictive thought of beauty.

Sure, portion of that comes with moving a bequest rubric similar Vogue, and adjacent Condé Nast successful the aboriginal years, for arsenic agelong arsenic she did. But it’s besides just to ask: however galore caller voices, divers stories, oregon mundane bodies were kept retired portion that legendary bob held tribunal successful the beforehand row?

Between 2000 and 2005, Vogue enactment 81 models connected its covers, and lone 3 of them were Black, according to a survey by The Pudding. Now that’s not a large look.

In 2020, a New York Times study connected Condé Nast revealed the vexation of erstwhile Black employees, galore of whom said they faced “ignorance and lazy stereotyping” from achromatic editors whenever Black civilization was connected the table.

And the disapproval hasn’t stopped astatine Vogue US. In 2022, British Vogue ran a screen featuring 9 models from Africa, and inactive got dragged. All the models had Western-style hair, and their tegument appeared digitally darkened. Many saw it not arsenic a solemnisation of Black beauty, but arsenic a filtered, flattened mentation of it, designed for the regard of a precise white, very planetary manner industry.

She’s officially announced her status now. But the representation she's created? That’s going to outlive america all. The bob? Still undefeated. The sunglasses? Probably inactive on.

But present that she’s stepped down, there’s a bigger question hanging successful the air: does manner request different Anna? Someone conscionable arsenic precise, conscionable arsenic powerful? Or is this the infinitesimal Vogue yet rethinks who gets to beryllium successful that editorial spot and what the adjacent epoch should really look like?