As somebody who as soon as clocked hours within the American Vogue equipment closet—checking out and in pattern footwear, luggage and belts—I’ll admit: listening to that Anna Wintour is stepping down as Editor-in-Chief gave me a bit of jolt. Anticipated? Certain. However nonetheless? It felt like the ultimate scene of a vogue film I wasn’t prepared to finish.
Since 1988, Anna hasn’t simply run Vogue—she’s run the desk. The style calendar. The entrance row. The best way editors have a look at you over their glasses. And whereas she’ll nonetheless maintain her international content material title and steer the Condé Nast mothership (minus The New Yorker), her departure from that Editor-in-Chief position feels symbolic. As a result of, to be trustworthy, that title, as soon as handled like royalty, has turn into a relic. One thing from the golden age of print, now quietly being folded into the digital ether like final season’s press launch.
And but, for many years, it meant all the pieces to many people. Why? The Satan Wears Prada. That movie—and the icy legend it immortalized—made “working at Vogue” the dream job for 1,000,000 wide-eyed women (and let’s be actual, loads of us boys, too). By no means thoughts the precise sweat and spreadsheets—it was in regards to the fantasy. The heels clacking down Condé’s hallways. The runway racks. The unsolicited glamour. Anna, fictionalized by way of Miranda Priestly, turned each the boogeywoman and the blueprint.
Picture: Taylor Hill for Getty Photos.
However to her credit score, past the mythology and the memes, Anna did assist usher in cultural moments that mattered—albeit at a tempo that would’ve used a quicker hemline. Naomi Campbell broke the September cowl barrier in ’89. Beyoncé snatched management of her personal cowl shoot in 2018, bringing in Tyler Mitchell and altering Vogue historical past within the course of. Nicki Minaj lastly bought her vogue flowers in 2023. And in between all that, fashions like Anok Yai and Jourdan Dunn popped up in frames that used to really feel reserved for a special form of magnificence.
Was it excellent? No. Was it influential? Undeniably. Anna’s legacy is one in all contradictions—precision and energy, detachment and dominance, imaginative and prescient and gatekeeping. Nevertheless it’s additionally a legacy that cracked open a notoriously white establishment simply sufficient to let some new faces by way of the gilded doorways.
Earlier than stepping down, Anna Wintour gave us Superfine—a Met Gala steeped in Black dandyism, historical past and excessive fashion. It was a parting reward stitched with reverence, proof that even the coldest gatekeeper knew when it was time to let the tradition lead.
So yeah, the bob stays, the sun shades keep, however that large “Editor-in-Chief” title? It’s headed to the archive. And someplace, a former intern is exhaling, a Condé cross nonetheless dangling from their lanyard, whispering: that’s all.