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How Anna Turned It 'Round
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for Oscar de la Renta
Just a few months ago, Vogue editor Anna Wintour was fighting negative press and rumors of a replacement. Then, writes Tina Brown, she came up with a plan.
Hand it to Vogue’s fêted dominatrix Anna Wintour. She took the lemons and made them into lemonade. Only three months ago, she was having to endure the nasty, rattling drip of negative press. Vogue’s ad pages were cratering. The collapse of the economy made her glossy, aloof brand look suddenly dated. Si Newhouse, chairman of Condé Nast, known for his lightning strikes on the careers of even his seemingly safest executives, was supposed to be shopping for younger, fresher faces from his European stable to take over the faltering flagship. Gossip columnists had begun to circle for a death watch. Behind her mysterious shades, Ms. Wintour is anything but impervious—that’s why she wears them. She’s been in America too long not to have absorbed the quintessentially American neurosis about success—fear of falling.
View Our Gallery of Fashion’s Night Out
Now the movie is a hit. Anna is bigger than ever. After so much reality TV and confessional celebrity interviews, the public is tired of accessible stars. Who needs them to be Just Like Us? Just Like Us means just as boring as we are. It’s mystique today that everybody craves. What’s she really like behind the dark glasses? Anna’s appeal is that she has no interest in pretending to be human.
On Thursday night, at the opening of her brainchild and shopping extravaganza, Fashion’s Night Out, she arrived at the opening in Queens with New York’s Mayor Bloomberg, the designers Diane von Furstenberg and Michael Kors, the movie star Kate Hudson, and the cast of Hair. The crowds had been lining up to meet Anna for hours and were thrilled when she was oblivious.
“Everybody loves a bitch, and Anna Wintour was true to her image tonight,” Mary Flannelly, 66, of Rego Park, told The Daily Beast’s Isabel Wilkinson. “I had been waiting for two hours and I had my little shirt all ready. Anna comes flying in high—has she ever been to Queens before? She’s in her ivory tower, and that’s how she gets to the top. People love a bitch.”
Yes, people do. It’s so thrilling to be intimidated. But maybe Anna isn’t a bitch, just a smart, hard-headed businesswoman doing her job. While the fashion world wailed about the effect of the collapse of the economy on retail, she briskly assumed the leadership role. Fashion’s Night Out, the orgy of shopping she decreed on the eve of Fashion Week in New York, was her brainchild and her triumph. She persuaded the mayor to let the 800 stores open all night and marshaled her influence to try a self-starting stimulus package that swiftly spread, via the editors of Vogue in Europe, to Paris and Milan, too.
It was a gamble again. What if no one had come? What if those stores and boutiques and showrooms had been devoid of customers opening their wallets? But the gamble paid off—well, in turnout anyway. It was a fete de fashion that at least announced that fashion was trying to stay alive. The ka-ching of the cash registers from Manhattan’s style palaces to the knockoffs in the outer boroughs were singing all Thursday night the sweet music of commerce, even if it was only for $30 t-shirts. Von Furstenberg, her collaborator as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, told me that one of the best things about the idea was that it wrested back Fashion Week from the spectacle of those bored celebrities who sit in the front row—and restored fashion to the trade. “So she has created something that will now always be the Thursday before the shows, something as big for the fashion world as Mother’s Day is for Hallmark!” she said.
I guess you get called a bitch when you get things done.
Tina Brown is the founder and editor in chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A With Tina Brown.
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Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
CRich2
Tina ask Anna to add a poetry section. Let's bring back some culture and taste:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/09/poetry-lets-talk-about-it-10/
LarryK
Tina is absolutely right in saying that to be successful, one cannot always be popular. Americans have a tendency in politics and business to reward "process" and mediocrity. In order to stand above the crowd in a creative venture, one has to be a perfectionist or close to it. The devil is in the details as well as Prada. Those who are do-ers like Anna Wintour come to realize that they have to ignore those who would drag her down.
sulenn
I do think that Anna Wintour has undeniably raised her profile during these last weeks. THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE is playing everywhere. I would not call her appearance on Letterman an unqualified success and her "Let Them Eat Cake" answer to Letterman's effort to find out how one would find stylish solutions with less money must have left a lot of people hungry.
But even as President Obama is asked constantly and judged constantly on the success of his stimulus package, isn't there a big question about the success of Fashion's Night Out in selling new merchandise?
Among my stops on September 10th was Bergdorf Goodman which was so crowded I left as fast as I got in. But today -- the 13th -- a logical day for people to return and actually shop -- the store was empty -- totally empty. I spoke to a saleswoman I know in the Cosmetics Department and she said that basically nothing had sold on Thursday night -- probably not enough to cover costs -- and there were indeed mobs rushing to use the Ladies
Room but nothing else.
It is certainly not a triumph to get people to come for free champagne and entertainment. Of course they will. It is getting them to come back which is the test of her stimulus. And whether it was worth 6 months of planning.
joymars
I was wondering why all of a sudden out of nowhere we were getting barraged by stories of this completely unimportant, unappealing person.
She's NOT important to the public at large, yet she was suddenly getting a P.R. push that is usually reserved for real public players.
Now I get it. She hired a P.R. firm to save her career. THAT was the smart move. The movie, and all that has come after it, was the strategy of her P.R. firm.
Now THAT'S a woman you don't mess with! But I hope she goes back to her comparative anonymity. I've known of her for decades, in passing, because I read lots of media. But hers is a specialty world, and even with all this push to make her a familiar personality, she doesn't come off as appealing in any way.
It's always painful to see a non-charismatic personality being shoved down the public's throat. Gives a bad rep to the P.R. profession -- and they don't need that. THEY always prefer to work in the shadows.
Genni2002
Thanks, joymars, for explaining it to me. I was also wondering..
robertjohnabbott
Wintour's work is instructive to people like me who work to balance creativity with business management, and I think a descriptor like "bitch" is inadequate, not to mention sexist.
tmm1980
This is just bad journalism: The film documents the making of the September 2007 issue of Vogue. So it was filmed 2 years ago. Writing " Only three months ago, she was having to endure the nasty, rattling drip of negative press.... So she took a big, bold gamble. She allowed the documentary director R.J. Cutler's movie cameras behind the closed doors of Vogue's offices in Times Square." is, chronologically,inaccurate. And, journalistically, misleading.
KayFay
Thank you tmm1980 - I was thinking the exact same thing. This documentary was filmed two years ago! I don't think Tina Brown needed to resort to such sloppy journalism to make her point.
pbwest
No, it's just tedious to have to explain the whole timeline to the uninitiated. It goes something like this:
2003: "The Devil Wears Prada" book is released, Wintour "the bitch" becomes minor household name, enters popular folklore as the worst boss of all time.
2006: TDWP movie is released, Meryl Streep gets Oscar nom for her depiction of the Ice queen, Wintour surpasses Zsa Zsa Gabor and Naomi Campbell as most famous bitch alive.
2007: RJ Cutler approaches Vogue to possibly do documentary on them. Already the Marc Jacobs documentary and MTV reality show on Teen Vogue have paved the way for Vogue to "open their doors" and act "natural" as they are being filmed.
2008: Vogue still sitting on the video coverage, the economy tanks, rumours run wild that Wintour will be cut.
2009: Major fashion news outlets report that Si Newhouse is shopping replacements for Wintour; the Ice queen steps up her game, has massive debut for her documentary.
2009: Sept 11, Tina writes article, the uninitiated insult her journalism.
The point is the timing of the release, and the genius in predicting in 2007 that in 2009, she might need a documentary about herself to bolster her position at Vogue.
Thanks Tina for stepping up and defending your colleague!
piktor
To paraphrase W. Churchill, fashion mechanics respond only to "rum, sodomy and the lash".
dailyplanet
Winston Churchill has gone down in history as an eloquent statesman and politician of genius and iconic status. Alas, the "mechanics" of fashion was not one of his areas of expertise. He probably knew a lot about rum; I would give him that.
As for his familiarity with "sodomy" and "the lash,"...one can only speculate.
melissamsouza
Ms. Brown, however "shrewd" Ms. Wintour is as a marketing person this still doesn't give her the vision or the talent to take Vogue into the 21st Century. The magazine has become as boring and as stale as can-be--impossibly unappealing covers with the same cookie-cutter actresses (she repeats them over and over again, in the same Warhol-like fashion), the same Anglo-Saxon looks inside and outside, superficial, gossipy articles, ugly fashion. I used to be a Vogue fan and bought the magazine almost monthly when I was a teen, but ever since Wintour took over, the overall quality of the magazine has just plummeted. Wintour rode the roaring 90's and early 2000s easily, with the enormous capitalist fire that spread with easy credit and ever-increasing ranks of multi-millionaires in both established and emerging markets--and their huge appetites for luxury and fashion. Swelling ad pages in such an atmosphere was easy; now comes the hard part, and Wintour just isn't up to it. Just look at the much touted September issue currently on the stand: for the 42nd time, the very Anglo Charlize Theron on the bland cover we've seen endless times, covered with too much writing in the same typeface. Wintour seemed to be making a concession to African-Americans when she put Michelle Obama on the cover, but I emphasized "seemed", because she has immediately reverted back to her very white, Anglo-Saxon walking sticks. Where is the diveristy of America and of the world in the pages of Vogue? Where is the courage to innovate with layouts, covers, and new designers? I truly believe Mr. Newhouse should continue his search for younger, fresher faces, indeed. With this incredibly unappealing and tasteless Editor-in-Chief, Vogue will continue to flounder. The woman has just passed her curve and it is time to give someone else a chance.
SansSouci572
I agree about the Sept. issue; I found it to be very boring, stale, flat.
However, I disagree it has anything at all to do with her age. Diversity of America includes all ages, not just all colors and sizes of people. Artistic vision has nothing to do with your age.
melissamsouza
I agree completely that artistic vision and capacity for work have nothing to do with age--and my point had nothing to do with Wintour's age. I was simply trying to say that the quality of her editorial work has always been dubious at best, and has gotten considerably worse in the last few years with this fever for cookie-cooker, totally lackluster covers, layouts and contents. Every professional of this kind has a cycle, and this woman has just proven that, despite getting kudos for her business acumen (in very easy, booming times of media industry consolidation), she ain't no creative genius (besides being insufferable as a human being), and in such a difficult and changing economic and social climate, Wintour ain't cutting it artistically, editorially, creatively, etc. And she won't be cutting it anytime soon. She just doesn't seem to get it, that's all. I'll wait for a new editor-in-chief to consider buying Vogue again.
dsmurfin
Your comment that Mr. Newhouse should continue his search for "younger, fresher faces" had "nothing to do" with age? If "I truly believe Mr. Newhouse should continue his search for younger, fresher faces" isn't an ageist and therefore discriminatory remark, it's hard to imagine what would be.
dailyplanet
The "movie", the Letterman appearance...these are the tactics of someone going through death throws. You can hear the death rattle in every move Anna Wintour's made recently. She's out to save her professional life and she knows it. Vogue magazine has become sloppily, indifferently edited, the photo editorials full of dated aesthetics that looked cutting edge in the 1980s. Only Grace Coddington can occasionally pull off some of the old magic. For the most part, where's the artistic fantasy of fashion of which Vogue was the standard bearer? The covers themselves have been screaming, obtrusive blurbs of text placed around posed celebrities. And boy aren't I sick of the endless covers of movie "stars;" there are a glut of magazines out there that cater to that audience. I'm not reading Vogue because it's made itself into some glossed up version of a People magazine with high-end advertisers. Look at any European edition of Vogue. Especially Italian Vogue where the standard of what an elite fashion magazine should look like STILL looks like. I agree, Anna Wintour has had her "day in the sun." Pass the crown on to someone else. And it's not Anna's age that's the problem; she's just lost whatever it was she once brought to Vogue.
melissamsouza
Agreed. Completely. Actually I just spent some time at a newstand today and got a look at the other European Vogues. The contrast with this American-Wintour glop couldn't be greater. Italian Vogue, especially, had a wonderful black and white, full-bodied shot of Linda Evangelista as a forties vamp on the cover. As for your comment on Grace Coddington, I think Wintour purposefully puts her down and makes the magazine as mediocre as possible by over-ruling her. If the magazine gets too good again, with award-winning, highly praised artistic layouts, then Coddington might get the credit and could be a replacement for this unbearable witch of a woman. It seems to be conventional wisdom on the part of some (not all) that a woman has to be a bitch to get things done. Not so. There are several ways to lead people. The former editor of Harper's Bazaar, Liz Tilberis, was beloved by friends, staff and colleagues. When she died of cancer there was an entire issue of the magazine done as a tribute to her. I doubt many people will regret the sure and upcoming departure (whenever it comes, but it will come) of Anna Wintour, no matter how many people in the industry she thinks she owns like slaves just because she mentored them. Judging by the quality of the magazine, the designers she promotes, the models she chooses to favor, I'd say she's a mentor who favors stunted growth of her disciples.
Bongenre
THANK YOU, not for your enlightened opinion, for it seems everyone has by now realized that American Vogue is in a bad state. I thank you because, whether or not they think she is, nobody seems to realize that only discussing whether or not she's a bitch is tedious and sexist. More tedious still when a real evaluation of her quality of work is the discussion that needs to be had.
dailyplanet
Women successful in high-powered professions are commonly trashed for being bitches-on-wheels. Men using the same management style are praised for being aggressive and demonstrating leadership. That's reality of our culture.
That being said, Anna Wintour may be uber demanding, abrasive and hell to work for but that's an employee relation issue between her and those who work with her; a workplace environment to endure or from which to escape.
As you say, it's the quality of the finished product, in this case a fashion magazine called Vogue which is the issue. And every issue of Vogue has become a book whose value as an iconic publication has deteriorated.
queensplate
goodness....talk about beating on a dead horse
susangalea
"I guess you get called a bitch if you get things done". No,
I think you'll find Ms Brown, that you get called a bitch when you are repeatedly, unnecessarily disdainful of others. Like Ms Wintour. Erm, your summation on the evidence of Wintour's frigidity and ruthlessness is to attempt to deny calumny that is of Ms Wintour's own making. Facts are stubborn things and no amount of obsequious massage from Ms Brown can alter their truth.
sophia5
"Anna's appeal is that she has no interest in pretending to be HUMAN."
That sounds like such a slam.
Is there anything more insulting than suggesting someone is Non-HUMAN ?
"PRETENDING TO BE HUMAN" How is NOT being "HUMAN" appealing ?
No wonder why she's so disliked.
Maybe she's misunderstood.
Perhaps painfully shy and insecure, which translates to aloof.
Perhaps socially uncomfortable yet firm, which translates into bitchy.
Maybe she was never hugged as a child.
Maybe under that frigid exterior is an actual "HUMAN"
screaming to get out, wanting to be relaxed and jovial
in the presense of others, but NOT pretending to be "HUMAN,"
maybe just not sure HOW to be "HUMAN."
Or maybe . . . she's just a bee-otch ?
Must be one or the other ?
sophia5
"pretending to be human"
Is that a uniquely British trait ?
Does that explain the "stiff upper lip?"
Pretend NOT to be HUMAN . . . force yourself NOT TO CRY ?
AmericanPravda
Tina:
Anna Wintour is part of the problem; actually, a significant part of the problem.
She's in the vanguard of those women who proselytize on behalf of the fashion industry, an industry that sells material and baubles to mindless women, who, in turn, wear the stuff to impress other mindless women.
I hope that this industry has peaked and women are coming to their senses and are no longer willing to pay hugely inflated prices for junk.
The world can easily do without the Anna Wintours!
dbarnes963
BRAVO! Well Said!
Bongenre
"This" is not a new "problem". Wintour didn't invent merchandising.
AmericanPravda
No she didn't, but she sure as Hell does her bit to perpetuate this vacuous industry. Of course, Tina Brown's teenage groupie-like toadying to Wintour and her ilk only adds to my distaste of this truly shallow and vulgar business.
Give me women who can see through this fakery and whose feet are firmly planted in the world of common sense and good judgement.
dailyplanet
Fashion is a business at bottom, like every other commodity in our consumer society; goods are promoted to generate sales. This is Anna Wintour's problem: she's fallen into the mentality of the "rag trade" hawker. She's abandoned the mission of Vogue's vision.
Since its first print date, generations ago, Vogue was conceived to be the exemplar of fantasy luxury...a dream book of clothes as artistic expressions of self-image.
For people who perceive clothing as just something to cover their nakedness...well the whole concept of clothing as art is incomprehensible. The skill, talent, and visionary crafting of clothing is an artistic endeavor as valid as any other of the recognized creative practices such as, painting, sculpture, interior decor. Art, explains, clarifies specifics of our culture, a way of seeing and clothing in this way is allied to other examples of figurative art.
Vanity and senseless self-indulgence is not restricted to people who shop for clothes and jewelry. Too many mindlessly shop to impress other people...and to accumulate stuff, quantity over quality...yes, and a stupid way to live your life.
Vogue, has sadly deteriorated in reputation and is no longer the "dream book" it was meant to be. It's become another banal, visual representation of the clothing trade; no longer the elite purveyor of a world...a kingdom even those who couldn't afford to buy into, like myself, enjoyed being a tourist in, visiting its pages every month.
diiver
Good for Anna - she does get her job done.
Farquah
Abuse of underlings is NOT something to be admired.
michaelep
Ms. Wintour won't be at Vogue forever. Everything changes. I will be glad to see her go.
ardeth
Oh, pulleaze, Tina! You're OK, but your pal is a fur hag. The day she stops pushing dead animal skin as "fashion" is the day I'll be impressed. This woman has no ethics and no genuine class.
Nuld001
Tina, loved the Anna article. She certainly is one smart & successful businesswoman who has the genius to keeping everyone guessing. If that's the definition of a bitch, then so be it.
melissamsouza
The problem is, as a fashion lover and former Vogue fan, the magazine isn't just about business. It's also about art--beautiful and innovative fashion, a variety of fashion models, riveting photography and layouts, imagination, dreams. These are attributes that have been sucked out of the magazine under Wintour's watch, as much as the ad pages swelled during the economic boom years (as I mention in my above comments). For all her braggadaccio about her pursuit and approval of excellence, Wintour puts out a pretty mediocre product, and treats her fellow colleagues and subordinates in a very mediocre way. She's about as innovative and open-minded as that same hair-style she's been using for the past hundred years.
Southpaw
If that's her own hair, I eat my hat.
dailyplanet
southpaw: Being Anna Wintour's hairdresser must be a job only someone who enjoys living in a nightmare would want. One strand of hair out of place...and it's off to the guillotine (for the hairdresser, that is).
I'm thinking it's a wig.
Embers
Anna Wintour brought all her problems on herself, from everything I've read. Maybe her horrible reputation has been affecting magazine sales. I can't think of any other reason why she'd suddenly attempt to mend her ways.
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