Vogue's reigning queen: Anna Wintour turns 75

Sunglasses, bob with bangs, haute couture dress: Anna Wintour is her own brand. Now the Vogue boss is 75 years old - and can't shake off her image as a Prada-wearing devil.

Large dark sunglasses, a neatly cut bob with bangs and a haute couture dress: Anna Wintour has made herself a brand with recognition value. "Even her hairstyle is visible from space," the British newspaper The Guardian once joked. As a journalist, she has made it to the top of the US fashion magazine Vogue, and since 2020 she has been responsible for the content of all Vogue editions worldwide and for almost everything that the Condé Nast publishing house publishes in the USA. On Sunday (November 3rd), the grande dame of fashion magazines turns 75 - but she has no intention of stopping. "I love what I do. It always challenges me."

Prada-wearing devil?

Ever since the successful film "The Devil Wears Prada" in 2006, in which Meryl Streep plays a magazine editor-in-chief who is clearly based on Wintour, the Vogue editor has had the reputation of being a devilishly mean boss who always wants the impossible and doesn't forgive any mistakes. This has also become a building block of her brand - and she takes it with composure. "Sometimes there is a certain kind of personal criticism against me that a man in my position probably wouldn't get," the fashion icon once said - but also: "I am very focused. So maybe because of my clarity and focus, I haven't let it get to me."

Wintour admits that she is not very good at delegating. "The devil is in the details. But I'm not a creative person, I can't paint, I can't draw, I can't make anything - I just have to make sure everything is done right."

Tennis with children and grandchildren

She is often described as having a "vivid imagination." "I really hope that my colleagues know who I am and what our shared values ​​are. And I know that my son Charlie and my daughter Bee know exactly who I am and who I am not," says Wintour, who was married to child psychologist David Shaffer between 1984 and 1999. When she spends time with her two children and three grandchildren, she doesn't talk about work. "We play tennis and fool around. That's my consolation."

Wintour was born in London in 1949, the daughter of a newspaper editor. "I grew up in a time when women left the dinner table so that men could smoke their cigars and talk about the really important issues." At 16, Wintour left school. "To be honest, I wasn't very good. And I wanted to be independent and do my own thing. It was a mixture of laziness and having brothers and sisters who were very good academically."

After her first jobs in department stores and various magazines, Wintour came to US Vogue, where she has been editor-in-chief since 1988. The magazine world around her has changed completely in the meantime. "When I first started working as a young girl in Great Britain, it was a great thing when we reached 90,000 people." Vogue's Instagram profile alone now has almost 50 million fans. At the same time, however, the print circulation of many magazines continues to decline, and advertising revenues are falling.

Kamala Harris on the Vogue cover

Like the entire industry, Wintour is looking for solutions to this - one of them is to take a stand. The grande dame is, for example, firmly positioning herself on the side of the Democrats in the US presidential election campaign. She celebrated former First Lady Michelle Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the cover of Vogue, and current presidential candidate Kamala Harris has already received two covers.

The magazine did not dedicate a cover to Melania Trump during her time as First Lady - and Wintour's opinion is also clear with regard to Melania's husband, the former US President and current Republican candidate Donald Trump. What could he do to be invited back to the legendary Met Gala, with which Wintour celebrates the party with the most coveted guest list in New York every year at the Metropolitan Museum? "Absolutely nothing." (dpa)