After 37 years, Anna Wintour is stepping down from her role as editor-in-chief at American Vogue.
Wintour, 75, will stay on board in her roles as chief content office for Condé Nast and as the global editorial director at Vogue. The magazine announced it would be looking for a new head of editorial content at American Vogue.
The shift will bring American Vogue under the structure it rolled out across its international editions. Four years ago the company changed its editorial structure, bringing together the editorial teams around the world for the first time. The new editorial content head as Vogue U.S. role “was part of our organization design over four years ago and it will join the Heads of Editorial Content for Japan, China, India, Taiwan, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Middle East” according to a statement shared with TheWrap.
Wintour’s role has expanded over the last four years with the structural change in addition to the day-to-day editing of American Vogue. She currently oversees every brand globally – including Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, AD, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, Bon Appétit, Tatler, World of Interiors, Allure and more, with the exception of The New Yorker.
Though she did not graduate from college, she attended North London Collegiate School and Queen’s College in London. During her time, at North London, she was known for rebelling against the institutions dress code. Her sense of fashion and her desire to cover it carried on into the ’70s when she nabbed a job as a one of the first editorial assistants at Harper’s & Queen, which is where she jumpstarted her career in fashion journalism. In 1975 she became a junior fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar in New York City.
By 1988, Wintour became the editor-in-chief of Vogue, releasing her first U.S. Vogue cover in November 1988, the same month as her birthday. It featured model Michaela Bercu, who was 19 at the time. In 2013, Wintour became the artistic director of of Condé Nast and was named as its global content advisor in 2019.
Over the years, Wintour has become a household name and an icon in the fashion realm. Her reputation for being a challenging, intimidating and powerful boss was the inspiration behind Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada,” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.
