Why Anna Wintour really put herself on the cover…
First off, let’s stipulate that editors-in-chief don’t run their own pictures on the covers of their publications.
Let’s additional stipulate that Dame Anna Wintour stepped down as the editor-in-chief of Vogue months in the past, changed by Chloe Malle, daughter of Candice Bergen and director Louis Malle.
But Malle will not be Vogue’s editor-in-chief, either. She’s acquired the mouthful title Head of Editorial Content. And Wintour’s two titles trump Malle’s one. The Dame didn’t step down — she stepped up to Global Chief Content Officer and Global Editorial Director of Vogue. So, whether or not it was Malle or Wintour who determined to put the latter on the May issue cover of fashion’s flagship magazine, can we also agree who is clearly operating the show?
Anna Wintour, the former editor-in-chief of Vogue, seems on the May cover of the magazine along with Meryl Streep — who performs a character based on Wintour in the new movie “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” While the cover is a promotion piece, it also reconfirms Wintour as a energy broker when the magazine, and the magazine industry, really wants that. Annie Leibovitz
Why this, why now? Some speculate it’s Wintour’s approach of reminding the world she’s still in charge.
But more doubtless, it’s a reflection of the sorry state of magazines and fashion magazines in normal — and of Vogue in explicit.
The May cover is, really, a promotion piece. You’d be forgiven for pondering it’s touting AARP, as photographer Annie Leibovitz, 76, shot Wintour, 76, and Meryl Streep, 76, both of them styled in Prada by another growing older fashion eminence, Grace Coddington, who turns a sprightly 85 later this month. HBD, Grace! All of them are still working, so bravo for that.
Dame Anna Wintour stepped down as the editor-in-chief of Vogue months in the past, changed by Chloe Malle, daughter of Candice Bergen and director Louis Malle. Getty Images
Rather, it’s first a promotion for the Met Gala, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual fundraiser for what was once called its Costume Institute, to be held May 4. Now, it’s called the Anna Wintour Costume Center, where she also holds the titles of chairman of the gala and a Trustee of the museum. Damn, Dame, you’ve acquired a lot of titles.
Oops, add one more: Devil. Vogue’s cover is also promoting “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” as Streep stars as Miranda Priestly, the Wintour stand-in from the novel by Lauren Weisberger, the first movie and, now, its sequel, which opens three days before the gala.
But the cover also promotes Wintour as a energy broker even though, just this week, New York Magazine, where Wintour was fashion editor before transferring to Vogue, described the fashion bible as “waning” — doubling down by quoting a fashion PR saying, “Vogue matters less and less.”
Wintour introduced at the Oscars in March, in a humorous bit with “The Devil Wears Prada 2” star Anne Hathaway that served as savvy promotion for the film — and Wintour herself. Disney via Getty Images
It all calls to thoughts the late Nineteen Seventies, when the superstar magazine People was the most highly effective new publication on newsstands, promoting 3 million copies a week, with promoting income that impressed awe and envy.
It also impressed discuss of a People Magazine Curse. Though an look on its cover might increase the fortunes of a e-book, film, superstar or politician, there have been frequent weeks when those covers preceded a flop, a divorce, a rehab stint or even death.
Decades later, the Curse continues: think about the beloved comedian actress Betty White, who died two days after a People cover celebrating her a centesimal birthday in 2021.
“The Devil Wears Prada 2,” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, is out May 1 — three days before Wintour’s Met Gala. ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection
The Curse so appealed to the schadenfreude-inclined that it impressed variations for Sports Illustrated (for athletic accidents), Time (for reputational downfalls) and, yes, Vogue (for superstar {couples} — Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere — who broke up after showing in its pages).
It’s the uncommon sequel that lives up to an authentic. So it’s attainable, with Wintour and Streep on the cover, that the Curse will maintain and “Devil 2” will bomb. Or the Met Gala, with this 12 months’s “Costume Art” theme and “Fashion Is Art” gown code, will prove to be another ludicrous superstar costume get together. Or Vogue will continue to wane, growing ever-thinner.
Dinosaurs — global fashion conglomerates, Hollywood film studios, celebrity editors, self-important celebs — still stroll the earth, their momentum defying inevitable extinction. But one global phenomenon is sure to survive. Cross-platform product promotion is today’s highest artwork type. And rattling if that Dame isn’t its Queen.
Michael Gross is the creator of “Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women” and “Focus: The Secret, intimacyy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers.” His latest, “Treasured Island: The Story of St. Barth . . . and Its Barbarians, Billionaires, and Beauties,” is out in June.
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