When I look at this picture, this is what I see. Ostensibly it is of Anna Wintour, the long-term editor-in-chief of American Vogue and now Global Editorial Director of Conde Nast (the company that publishes Vogue) seated companionably at last week’s Michael Kors fashion show beside Chloe Malle, the successor she appointed to her editor’s chair.
Seventy-five-year-old Anna is resplendent as usual, with her daily blow-dried Teflon bob and impenetrable shades, wearing a custom-made Michael Kors dress in her now preferred maxi style and one of her many expensive necklaces by British jeweller SJ Phillips.
Chloe, 39, is bare faced and bare legged in a pretty Altuzarra dress, her hair scraped back informally. She looks unaffectedly gorgeous, but what she does not look like is the all-powerful editor-in-chief of American Vogue.
How can she when the woman who has gained iconic status by dominating the role for 37 years – endlessly pulling the powerful levers of fashion and navigating the intrigues of the court of Conde Nast to survive longer than anyone would think imaginable – is plonked there beside her?
Anna may have given up the editorship, but the message is she’s not going anywhere.
I don’t know Chloe, but those I have spoken to says she is a great choice to run the magazine.
Anna Wintour, 75, Global Editorial Director of Conde Nast (the company that publishes Vogue) seated companionably at last week’s Michael Kors fashion show beside Chloe Malle, 37, the successor she appointed to her editor’s chair
She’s charming and savvy. She is well connected both in fashion and culture but also in showbiz. She can deal with the craziness of fashion, while being a well-grounded mother-of-two.
She knows Vogue inside and out, and vitally, she has been running the digital arm of US Vogue for two years, so she knows how to manage the often tricky balance between print and digital.
Just after appointing Chloe, Anna gave an interview to the long serving editor-in-chief of The New Yorker David Remnick (incidentally the only editor in the Conde Nast empire to have avoided Anna overseeing his work). Anna was fulsome in her praise of her appointee, saying: ‘I love Chloe.’
Meanwhile, in an interview with The New York Times, Chloe pointed out the proximity to Anna was a deterrent to some contenders for the job, but not her. ‘I don’t mind her being down the hall with her collection of Clarice Cliff pottery,’ she sweetly concluded. So it’s a lovefest.
But the reality is, for both Chloe and Vogue to survive, she needs to move away from her mentor and make the role her own.
Alexandra Shulman was the editor-in-chief of British Vogue from 1992 to 2017, serving for a total of 25 years, which was the longest tenure of any editor in the publication’s history
I have some skin in this game. When I was first appointed editor of British Vogue back in the dark ages of 1992, Anna suggested she host a few parties in Milan and Paris to introduce me to the fashion industry titans of which I knew precisely none.
The management of Conde Nast were all for this plan and sumptuous cocktail parties were put together.
On the surface this looked like a supportive gesture by the more senior editor, but the reality of the situation was not that Anna felt maternal towards me and wanted me to thrive – and why should she? – but that she needed to show off the strength and influence of American Vogue.
My predecessor Liz Tilberis had left British Vogue to relaunch Harper’s Bazaar in New York and was flinging lucrative contracts around like confetti. My appointment was a convenient excuse for Anna to reinforce her own power.
I have rarely felt as uncomfortable as I did standing beside her in the greeting line at those parties. I wore velvet frocks that I heartily regret – they made me look like an upholstered sofa, while Anna, as always, looked lithe and elegant in Chanel and Versace. It was her show and I was the bit player.
Chloe (pictured with Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker) may have a beaming, friendly smile, but this will not establish her as an authority in the fashion firmament
It was similar to how Kamala Harris came across when she invited the much-admired former first lady Michelle Obama on stage to give a message of support at a Democratic convention during her ill-fated presidential election campaign.
We are now in fashion month, with London Fashion Week starting on Thursday. This is Chloe Malle’s opportunity to establish herself – not, sadly, as the editor-in-chief of US Vogue (there are no more editors-in-chief when it comes to Vogue), but as the rather less salubrious Editorial Content Director. But titles apart, all eyes should be on Chloe. Not on Anna.
It’s a crucial time for a Vogue editor, which I only learned in retrospect. When I went to my first fashion season, I had no idea that anybody would be interested in me and what I was wearing, but it turned out they were.
I remember walking past Tilberis at a Milan show, she head-to-toe in Chanel and me in a Joseph jacket and Nicole Farhi skirt. This was a woman who had previously been a supportive boss of mine, but there was no camaraderie. She just said glacially: ‘Good luck, kiddo. You’re going to need it.’
I’m sure Chloe is way less naive about the ways of the fashion world than I was, given my previous job had been as editor of men’s magazine GQ – but she may well have to put her foot down and strike out independently pretty quickly.
The optics are powerful at the shows and, ludicrous as it is, things like the seating plan areas complex a jigsaw as the positioning will be at the Trump State dinner on Wednesday.
If Conde Nast really want Chloe to establish her power base, she should be flanked by her own team of staffers, not her predecessor.
She should not be arriving at galas – as she did last week at luxury fashion group Kering’s New York Fashion Week shindig – in the slipstream of Anna, trailing behind her in a blancmange pink Gucci dress as if she’s Anna’s lady-in-waiting.
Chloe may have a beaming, friendly smile, but this will not establish her as an authority in the fashion firmament.
And this is important – it is about more than ego and status. Both hers and Anna’s. I love magazines and want them to thrive in whatever form they can, but that depends on having characters who can lead a team, inspire them and be strong brand ambassadors for both the readers and critics of the brand.
Crucially, the editor of any magazine brand also needs to convince the advertisers of their authority and win over their trust.
Empire Of The Elite, a new book by Michael Grynbaum chronicling the Conde Nast dynasty, tells how advertisers took two years to support Vanity Fair when Brit Tina Brown took over, despite her numerous editorial coups including the devastating The Mouse That Roared piece on Charles and Diana’s marriage, and Nancy and Ronnie Reagan dancing on the cover.
If Conde Nast really want Chloe (centre) to establish her power base, she should be flanked by her own team of staffers, not by her predecessor. They are pictured together with Vanity Fair’s Mark Guiducci and filmmakerBaz Luhrmann, right
They had been burnt by two previous changes of editors. They needed to be confident about who was in charge.
Anna is a brilliant editor with unrivalled manipulative and political nous. Now she is now longer an editor but overseeing the business internationally, she should be showing her strength by allowing the new generation of talented magazine creatives to grow into roles every bit as powerful as hers.
Magazines are no longer about what pictures and words they contain, but also about videos, podcasts, festivals and sponsored events.
Chloe Malle seems to have all the attributes necessary to be able to hold her own in this world and to add some fresh thinking to the magazine she now presides over. But if I were her during these upcoming fashion weeks, I’d request not to be placed alongside Anna at every show.
I’d try to make my own space, to make sure that if there are any parties being thrown, it’s my name in large bold type as host at the top of the invitation, not Dame Anna’s.
