Vogue boss Anna Wintour on her public persona and being told ‘no’

Anna Wintour walks into our interview wearing her trademark black sunglasses.

I meet the woman who has been Vogue magazine’s editor-in-chief since 1988 at VOGUE: Inventing the Runway, a program pushed by Wintour about the history of the catwalk.

Our meeting is in a large underground space and we are surrounded by three large screens. It’s dark inside but the sunglasses stay in place as we chat.

I ask a little what they say. Are they a shield or something more, poor eyesight perhaps?

“They help me see and they help me not see,” Wintour tells me, mysteriously. “They help me to be invisible. They are a prop, I would say”.

London’s Lightroom uses digital and audio technology in a high-walled space to produce an immersive experience for visitors.

It has previously hosted a blockbuster David Hockney show and a Tom Hanks show about the history of space travel.

The showroom now offers audiences front-row seats to some of the most spectacular fashion shows in history, tapping into Vogue’s archive and network of contributors.

Wintour admits that “for someone who goes to so many shows, you get a little, not embarrassed, but you get used to the experience”.

Since most of those who will attend the exhibition will not have had the opportunity to attend events like this, he says they were determined to make sure that it felt like they were really there.

As the reigning queen of the fashion world, Wintour has had a real front row seat for decades — usually in a plush gold chair, the kind of furniture that’s ubiquitous at high-end catwalk shows where her invitation remains dead.

In the summary of the show, Wintour writes that “I have probably spent a year of my life waiting for fashion shows to start, which are notoriously slow to arrive”.

He tells me the American designer Marc Jacobs once hosted a runway show that was an hour and a half late, but “we all yelled at him after that, the next season, he not only started the show on time, he just started.” five minutes early”.

The Italian designer Gianni Versace, however, was “always on time”,

“It doesn’t matter who wasn’t there, it could have been the Pope, he didn’t care”.

That would suit Wintour, who is “horribly punctual, often ahead of schedule”.

You arrive early to our interview. Fortunately, I had been warned that it was a character trait and was ready.

The Vogue Show offers audiences a series of inspiring chapters, narrated by Cate Blanchett, that tell the story of fashion and the runway.

“It’s not very good to sit in space and watch the amazing changes that have happened in fashion,” Wintour tells me.

We are treated to a series of magazine front covers from the early days, black and white photographs of the first catwalk shows and images of couture salons in the early twentieth century.

Fashion at the time was “very elitist — you had to be invited and it was a very small world,” Wintour said.

Compare that to singer and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams’ first Louis Vuitton show in 2023. The pop-culture event, held at the Pont Neuf in Paris, with the likes of Beyonce, Rihanna and Wintour in attendance, has garnered one billion views online.

The democratization of fashion means, as Wintour puts it, “now everyone can come to the party, which is what it should be”.

The show takes us back to 2017 when Karl Lagerfeld created a runway inspired by a space station, complete with a rocket blast as models stood next to it decked out in Chanel. Wintour told me it was “extraordinary… and you couldn’t wait to see what he would come up with next”.

Lagerfeld had form. Ten years earlier for Fendi, he had broken new ground, using the Great Wall of China as a form of entertainment, his models walking on stone. Fashion designers of his caliber clearly do not do things by halves.

For insiders, Wintour has been one of the most important players in fashion for the better part of 40 years – a career maker, an advocate of fashion power including an A-list entertainer.

She hosts the annual Met Gala in New York, which sees the worlds of fashion and fame collide and spill over into a spectacle of outrageous outfits and celebrity appearances on the first Monday of May.

Those who aren’t on the inside might wonder how much Wintour resembles Miranda Priestly, the fictionally ruthless magazine manager from The Devil Wears Prada, whose portrayal by Meryl Streep is etched in fans’ memories.

“Is there a reason why my coffee is not available? Are you dead or is something happening?” The teacher asked carelessly about his assistant.

“The details of your incompetence do not interest me,” he told her later.

On Wintour’s trip to London, she leaned into comparison, attending a lavish premiere for a new version of the film’s musical. There, he told the BBC that “it’s up to the audience and my colleagues to decide if there is a similarity between me and Miranda Priestly”.

As we spoke, I wanted to know if she finds Anna Wintour’s public persona — sharp, cropped hair, meticulous clothes, glasses — the role she feels she should play.

He says: “I don’t really think about it.” “What I really love is the old aspect of my work.”

Wintour tells me she only brought one or two suitcases to London and wouldn’t be impressed if she wore less when she was back home in the US. “It’s about respect in the way you express yourself.”

More than one person has told me that no one ever says ‘no’ to Wintour. Donatella Versace says as much in the latest Disney documentary, Vogue: The 90s.

Wintour helps celebrate. “That is not true. They often say no, but that’s a good thing. No, the word is sweet”.

Do you think people are afraid of you, I ask him. “I hope not,” he replied.

Under his leadership, with talent, personality and an eye for what sells, Wintour tried to future-proof Vogue, making it a global brand. He is also a global content consultant for Conde Nast, the magazine’s publisher.

In today’s era, when influencers can take photos of fashion moments and quickly release them, Wintour has successfully positioned Vogue as an arbiter of taste and style.

Fashion and advertising are intertwined in the content of Vogue but Wintour does not accept my view that fashion journalism can be sycophantic.

“That’s not true and sometimes, I think, it worries us that working in fashion, that there is an outsider’s view that fashion is irrational and outsider.

“In fact, it’s a big business. We employ millions of people around the world.”

I take this answer to mean that Wintour, the daughter of the former editor of the Evening Standard newspaper, sees herself as a fashion ambassador rather than a journalist.

But he’s also a journalist, arguably one of the most famous journalists in the world – and one with no obvious fans.

I ask him, at 75, how long he plans to stay in his role.

He says: “I have no intention of giving up my job,” adding: “For now.”

VOGUE: Inventing the Runway is at Lightroom, London until April 2025.