1949–present
Latest News: Anna Wintour Steps Down as Vogue Head
After 37 years, Anna Wintour is no longer the editor-in-chief of Vogue. The fashion icon told staff this June that she planned to leave her longtime position as the American magazine’s head of editorial content. On September 2, Wintour announced her replacement: Chloe Malle, an internal hire who previously served as the editor of Vogue.com.
Wintour, who was served as editor-in-chief for longer than any previous employee, is widely credited with revitalizing Vogue and transforming it into a powerhouse among fashion magazines. After taking the reins in 1988, she instituted a number of groundbreaking changes. Wintour put an end to the supermodel era, instead showcasing celebrities and lesser-known models on her covers. She also made waves as the first editor to mix affordable fashion with designer clothes in photoshoots.
Although the 75-year-old’s tenure as editor-in-chief is over, Wintour isn’t leaving Vogue’s publishing company Condé Nast. She remains as the magazine’s global editorial director as well as the company’s chief content officer.
Who Is Anna Wintour?
Dame Anna Wintour is a British-American fashion icon who served as the influential editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine for 37 years. Wintour began her career as an editorial assistant at London’s Harpers & Queen magazine and worked her way up the ladder, landing editorial roles at Harper’s Bazaar and Viva in the 1970s. After leading the helm at British Vogue, she was named editor-in-chief of American Vogue in 1988. She revived the Condé Nast publication and has became one of the most influential figures in the fashion industry, known widely for her iconic pageboy haircut and chilly demeanor. Wintour stepped down as Vogue’s editor-in-chief in 2025 but remains the publication’s global editorial director.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Anna Wintour
BORN: November 3, 1949
BIRTHPLACE: London, England
SPOUSES: David Schaffer (1984–1999) and Shelby Bryan (2004–2020)
CHILDREN: Bee and Charles
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio
Early Life
Anna Wintour was born on November 3, 1949, in London to newspaper editor Charles Wintour and philanthropist Elinor Wintour. The family had considerable wealth.
Anna demonstrated a tendency to do things her own way at an early age. As a teenager, she made the decision to forgo academics, dropping out of her fancy finishing school and opting instead for a life that revolved around the tony London life of the 1960s that she so clearly adored. With her signature hairstyle—she first rocked the bob at age 15 and has changed it very little since—Anna frequented the same London clubs of pop culture’s biggest stars, including members of the Beatles and Rolling Stones.
The management style and drive that Anna would later show as a magazine editor was in part inspired by her father, a decorated World War II veteran who had earned a tough, stern, and talented reputation as editor of the London Evening Standard. Anna has never shied away from the similarities she shares with the man known as “Chilly Charlie.” “People respond well to people who are sure of what they want,” Anna told 60 Minutes in May 2009.
Fashion Magazine Career
Wintour began her career in the fashion department of Harper’s & Queen in London. Over the years, she rose up the editorial ladder and bounced from publication to publication between New York and London. In 1976, she moved to New York and took over as fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Still in her 20s and still in New York, Wintour left Harper’s for a job at Viva, a publication owned by the same outfit that managed Penthouse. There, Wintour essentially became Viva’s fashion department, cutting her teeth as a high-end editor and manager. Wintour spent generously on photographers and shoots, arranging for expensive trips to places like the Caribbean and Japan.
Following a brief stop at Savvy, where she served again as the magazine’s fashion editor, Wintour took a job with New York magazine in 1981. From the start, Wintour displayed her own sense of style and direction, even going so far as to bring her own desk to her new office. Its look: “A contemporary Formica-topped affair on two metal sawhorses as legs... along with a high-tech chrome-framed chair with a seat and back made of bungee cords,” wrote Jerry Oppenheimer, in his 2005 unauthorized biography of Wintour, Front Row.
British Vogue
In 1986, Wintour returned to London as chief editor of the Condé Nast–owned British Vogue. Not surprisingly, Wintour had her own ideas about the magazine and where it needed to go.
“I want Vogue to be pacy, sharp, and sexy, I’m not interested in the super-rich or infinitely leisured. I want our readers to be energetic, executive women, with money of their own and a wide range of interests,” she told the London Daily Telegraph. “There is a new kind of woman out there. She’s interested in business and money. She doesn’t have time to shop anymore. She wants to know what and why and where and how.”
Wintour’s sharp critiques and lack of patience soon earned a few memorable nicknames: “Nuclear Wintour” and “Wintour of Our Discontent.” The editor, though, relished it. “I’m the Condé Nast hit man,” she told a friend. “I love coming in and changing magazines.”
Her next big makeover came in 1987 with another Condé Nast publication, Home and Garden, where she summarily changed the publication’s title to HG and managed to reject nearly $2 million of already-paid-for photos and articles.
Grumblings about Wintour’s changes were quick to appear, but her bosses at Condé Nast were clearly behind her, doling out a salary of more than $200,000 to its demanding editor, and allowing a $25,000 annual allowance for clothes and other amenities. In addition, the magazine’s owners arranged for Concorde flights between New York and London so Wintour and her first husband could be together. But with her most influential role brewing on the horizon, Wintour’s stay at HG didn’t last long.
Vogue
In 1988, Wintour was named editor-in-chief of Vogue, allowing for her permanent return to New York. The move by Condé Nast came at a time when its signature fashion publication was at a crossroads. A magazine that had been at the forefront of the fashion world since the early 1960s, Vogue suddenly found itself losing ground to a three-year-old upstart, Elle, which had already reached a paid circulation of 850,000. Vogue’s subscriber base, meanwhile, was a stagnant 1.2 million.
Fearing that the magazine had become complacent—or worse, boring—the publisher placed Wintour atop the editorial masthead with all the freedom, not to mention financial backing, that she needed to revitalize the publication. In her three-decade reign at Vogue, Wintour more than accomplished her mission, restoring the magazine’s preeminence while producing some truly mammoth issues. The September 2004 edition, for example, clocked in at 832 pages, the most ever for a monthly magazine.
Along the way, Wintour demonstrated fearlessness about forging new ground. She decisively called an end to the supermodel era, showcasing a preference for celebrities rather than models on her covers. Wintour was also the first to truly mix low-end fashion items with more expensive pieces in her photoshoots. Her debut cover in November 1988 included a 19-year-old Israeli model outfitted in a pair of $50 jeans and a $10,000 jewel-encrusted t-shirt.
After 37 years at the helm, Wintour announced in June 2025 she would step down as Vogue editor-in-chief. Her reign came to an end that September when she named her replacement, Chloe Malle. Wintour remains the magazine’s global editorial director as well as Condé Nast’s chief content officer.
Editor’s note: Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and Biography.com are all operated by Hearst Magazines.
Fashion Influence: Met Gala and More
Despite her claims to the contrary, Wintour became a force in the fashion world not only through her decisions about what to feature in her magazine but also by breaking in newer designers and celebrating their styles. She helped make the careers of designers such as Marc Jacobs and Alexander McQueen. Her work has also made her a power broker between designers and retailers. In 2006, she initiated a deal between men’s designer Thom Browne and Brooks Brothers, which resulted in Brown’s work appearing in 90 of the retailer’s stores.
Over the years, Wintour demonstrated her ability to speak her mind. As gentle as she could be about the matter, the editor informed Oprah that the talk show host would need to lose 20 pounds before Wintour would put her on the cover of her magazine. And early in 2008, when Hillary Clinton snubbed Vogue out of fears that appearing too feminine might undermine her presidential ambitions, Wintour fired back at the Clinton camp with a letter in the February issue of her magazine.
“The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying,” she wrote. “This is America, not Saudi Arabia. It’s also 2008: Margaret Thatcher may have looked terrific in a blue power suit, but that was 20 years ago. I do think Americans have moved on from the power-suit mentality.”
The fashion icon has used her influence for philanthropic causes, too. The most notable of these efforts has been the annual Costume Institute Benefit, more commonly known as the Met Gala, for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. As a museum trustee, Wintour has co-chaired the celebrity-studded fundraiser all but two years since 1995 and raised nearly $175 million through 2016, per Forbes. The 2025 event saw a record gross of $31 million.
Still, the Met Gala has drawn controversy over some of its themes and other aspects of the event. Wintour, herself, sparked an uproar in October 2017 when she appeared on The Late Late Show With James Corden and revealed she would never invite President Donald Trump to the fundraiser again.
Beyond the Met Gala, Wintour helped create a new fund with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to encourage and support up-and-coming designers. Starting in 2009, she launched an New York City economic stimulus project with the Vogue-sponsored Fashion’s Night Out. The annual event, held in more than 800 stores across the city that September, lets the general public shop and mingle with some of the elite personalities of the fashion world, including Oscar de la Renta, Tommy Hilfiger, and Wintour, herself. Stars, such as actors Halle Berry and Sarah Jessica Parker, have also turned out for this fashion celebration. Although the event had successfully expanded worldwide, it closed its doors in New York City after a four-year run, reportedly due to inefficient planning and organizing.
Wintour’s contributions to the fashion world and charities have been recognized with some significant personal honors. In 2008, she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, then she became Dame Commander in 2017. In January 2025, Joe Biden awarded Wintour the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Devil Wears Prada and Documentary
With power and influence can come a well-documented ego, and Wintour developed a reputation for being aloof and cold. It has been said that she is difficult to work for and insists that her staff always look fashion-forward and rail-thin. Wintour, a mother of two who famously wore Chanel micro-mini skirts throughout her pregnancies, doesn’t exactly deny she can be a demanding person for which to work. “I’m very driven by what I do,” Wintour has said. “I am certainly very competitive. I like people who represent the best at what they do, and if that turns you into a perfectionist, then maybe I am.”
One of Wintour’s former assistants, Lauren Weisberger, wrote The Devil Wears Prada (2003), a fictionalized account of her days at Vogue. Her main character was a demanding boss not unlike Wintour. The book was made into a movie in 2006, starring Meryl Streep in the lead role. Wintour turned heads when she arrived at the film’s premiere dressed in Prada. This move showed critics and fans alike that Wintour isn’t without a sense of humor.
“The thing about Lauren’s book and this film is that I do not think fiction could surpass the reality,” a British fashion editor told a reporter around the time of the movie’s release. “You only have to see Anna’s requests for seats at the New York shows to get an inkling of how art in this instance is only a poor imitation of life. Most of us just ask for seats in the first or second row. She has her people request a seat from which she will not have to see or be seen by specific rival editors. We spend our working lives telling people which it-bag to carry, but Anna is so above the rest of us she does not even have a handbag. She has a limo. And she has her walkers [Vogue staff members] Andre Leon Talley and Hamish Bowles, whose main job is to carry her bits around for her.”
Nearly two decades after the movie’s successful release, a sequel was announced. Streep will reprise her role as Wintour’s onscreen counterpart, Miranda Priestly, in The Devil Wears Prada 2. The movie is expected to arrive in theaters in May 2026.
In 2006, plans were announced for a documentary about the making of Vogue’s September 2007 issue. Weighing nearly five pounds, the issue of the magazine was the largest ever to be published. The September Issue documentary was released in August 2009. The movie showed, for the first time, the exacting work required to produce an issue of Vogue. Touted as “the real Devil Wears Prada,” the documentary received wide critical acclaim. However, Wintour came across as much subdued than the Streep imitation of her. One critic described the famous editor as possessing “regal confidence.” In general, Wintour appears unfazed by comments about her in the media.
Ex-Husbands and Children
Wintour married South African psychiatrist David Shaffer in 1984. The couple had two children together, Bee and Charles, before divorcing in 1999. She got remarried to investor Shelby Bryan in 2004. After 16 years of marriage, they split in 2020.
Net Worth
As of June 2025, Wintour has an estimated net worth of $50 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
She is a noted philanthropist who has helped raise money to a number of causes, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, the Twin Towers fund after the 9/11 terror attacks, and AIDS research to the tune of more than $20 million over the years. In recognition of her work for the Met, the New York City museum named its newly redesigned costume space the Anna Wintour Costume Center in 2014.
At times, Wintour has publicly thrown herself into political fundraising to support Democratic candidates. In February 2012, she and actor Scarlett Johansson co-hosted a fundraising event for then-President Barack Obama during his reelection campaign. Her “Runway to Win” soiree offered up Obama-themed fashions and accessories from such designers as Diane Von Furstenberg, Marc Jacobs, and Tory Burch. “The runway is no longer just a runway, it’s now a force for change in politics,” Wintour told The New York Times. Later, in May 2023, she co-hosted a fundraiser with then–Vice President Kamala Harris.
Quotes
- If you can’t be better than your competition, just dress better.
- The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying.
- People respond well to those that are sure of what they want. What people hate most is indecision. Even if I’m completely unsure, I’ll pretend I know exactly what I’m talking about and make a decision.
- Fashion is a reflection of the time.
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Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
