If you want to read even more about Anna, of course you can do so in my book ANNA: The Biography, newly out in paperback.
Anna Wintour’s movements are like the global warming of fashion month. Only a small amount of activity is all it takes for cataclysmic effects to be felt across the global fashion ecosystem.
We saw this in 2010 when, after Anna revealed plans to be in town for just three of its seven days, Milan Fashion Week was reported to be “in chaos.” She had planned to breeze through Milan, then hit Paris early to cram in collection viewings before flying to the Oscars, where she wore her shades during the ceremony.
(During this era, each fashion week was a proper week if not longer; the fact that we have not full fashion weeks anymore but more like truncated fashion weeklets now is likely in part due to Anna not wanting to spend so much time on all of it.)
Her fashion week schedule prompted Italian fashion brands to scramble to reschedule shows to coincide with her visit. Italian Fashion Chamber President Mario Boselli even told the British Telegraph at the time, “She's welcome in Milan but if she only comes for a fleeting visit, perhaps it would be better [if] she stayed at home.”
You know who didn’t want her to stay home this season? New York designers, who wished she had stuck around longer. She barely went to anything but the Coach show, where J. Lo served as a buffer between her and alleged rival Edward Enninful. She was once again accused of “wreak[ing] havoc” on the shows by leaving NYFW early to go to London for Vogue World. Page Six reported, “The move allegedly left designers scrambling to finish their collections so they could show Wintour ahead of time.” She also reportedly got Michael Kors to move his runway show up a day so that she could use the same models for Vogue World.
A “source close to Vogue” told Page Six that Anna “spoke with the designers ahead of NYFW and explained Vogue World, and why she would be missing the shows. All of them were understanding and appreciated the mission of Vogue World.” On this point, I am skeptical, only because so few people grasp what Vogue World even IS, even after watching it, aside from something Condé Nast can monetize that’s not a website.
Anna likes to see collections early, and is nothing if not a workhorse, so she may have seen a lot of New York’s clothes behind the scenes. But she was photographed at many more US Open tennis matches than NYFW shows.
Wearing a wrist brace, she attended both by herself and with friends including Vera Wang, Emma Watson, and Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who had stayed at the “Roosevelt Cottage” at Anna’s Mastic estate when she was writing her memoir Both/And. Guess Anna’s never had the ESPN chyron writer out to Mastic, because during a tennis broadcast, the network called her the “Former Vogue Editor in Chief.” Thank you
for blessing us with the receipt:Former, her foot: leading up to Vogue World, she looked impeccable, as only the WORLDWIDE CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER AND GLOBAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR OF VOGUE, AHEM ESPN could in one of those delicious white Prada skirts with a $65 Vogue World top (apparently Selfridges is selling a Vogue World collection, which includes Anna’s shirt, $153 sweatshirts, and a $105 canvas tote).
And on the evening of September 14, she presided over only that which a worldwide and global executive can manifest. According to Vogue, it was “a star-studded theatrical extravaganza which weaved together opera, contemporary dance, ballet, Shakespearean monologues, showstopping musical performances, and gasp-inducing catwalk moments.” And according to the Daily Mail it was “a very bizarre show.”
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