Amy Odell - AnnA the biography

Anna

The Biography

Amy Odell

Gallery Books

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Copyright 2022 by Amy Odell

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First Gallery Books hardcover edition May 2022

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Interior design by Jaime Putorti

Jacket design by Zoe Norvell

Jacket photograph by Amanda Demme

Author photograph Arthur Elgort

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-9821-2263-8

ISBN 978-1-9821-2265-2 (ebook)

For Rick

People tend to cast people in clichs.

Anna Wintour, New York, October 18, 2018

O f course, she was wearing the sunglasses.

Anna Wintour walked into the Vogue staff meeting and looked at the group that had gathered around the table about ten thirty that morning. Many of them had been working late into the night, coming up with stories attempting to explain the unprecedented. Others had just been up crying, scared, in shock. Anna had extraordinary influence over a great many things, but the outcome of this election was not one of them.

It was November 9, 2016. Despite Hillary Clintons loss, after Vogues full-throttle support, including an endorsementthe first of its kind in the magazines 124-year historyAnna started the day as usual. She rose by 5:00 a.m., exercised at 5:30 or 6:00 (depending on whether she played her twice weekly tennis or worked out with her trainer), sat for thirty minutes for professional hair and makeup, and was then chauffeured to her office at 1 World Trade Center, where her three assistants and her usual breakfasta whole-milk latte and a blueberry muffin from Starbucks, which would mostly go uneatenwere waiting for her.

When she arrived that morning, wearing tall python boots and a printed red dress, Anna told the first assistant to call an all-staff meeting. Her requests for her assistants were constantday and night, weekday and weekend, and always delivered in emails with no subject line. Her schedule was meticulously planned, but this meeting was last-minute, and she asked her assistants to attend, which was unusual. No one knew the purpose of the gathering, but they did know that when Anna called for one, if you didnt arrive early, you were late.

Phillip Picardi, the editorial director of Teen Vogues website, had originally given his team permission to work from home that day. Covering the election live for the first time in the magazines history, they had all worked late trying to explain Donald Trumps victory to the millions of teenage girls who had expected proof that they too could become anything, the same way Anna had.

At seven thirty that morning, only three hours after Picardi had finally called it a night, his assistant had reached out about Annas all-hands meeting. Hed called his exhausted, emotionally spent staff, and told them to get to the office.

Seats at the white conference room table filled up, and staff packed into every remaining space behind them, waiting for Anna. The polish associated with Vogue employees is legendary, but that morning everyoneexcept Annalooked some version of terrible, Picardi recalled.

One of Annas biggest strengths as a businessperson and a leader has been letting nothing slow her down or stand in her waynot childbirth, not emotion, not corporate bullshit, and not losingand she had correctly sensed that her team needed a filament of the same hardy fiber at this particular moment.

Theres an article that came out today accusing me of going too far in supporting Hillary Clinton, the first woman to ever win the Democratic presidential bid for president, she said, standing at the front of the room. She was referring to a piece published that morning in the fashion industry newspaper Womens Wear Daily (commonly referred to as WWD), with the headline Did Anna Wintour and Vogues Hillary Clinton Advocacy Go Too Far?

With the bitter election now in the rearview mirror, many questions loom for Vogue, womens magazines, and the fashion industry, the article went on. To name a few: Did Vogue lose credibility with its readers? Should womens magazines cover stories like news outlets? Did Anna go too far in her role as editor?

Anna was believed to have been angling for an ambassadorship, which would have brought an end to her reign at Vogue. While Clinton thought Anna would have been a great ambassador, and nominating her was a possibility, she hadnt begun a formal process for filling those positions, an advisor said. It was unclear to both the campaign and Annas boss that she had serious interest in it. Her then-boyfriend, Shelby Bryan, said, If shed been offered the ambassadorship to the UK, I think she would have had to really think hard about that.

Surveying her staff in the conference room, Anna continued, I would just like to say to everyone gathered here today, who works for me, that if supporting LGBTQ rights, if supporting womens rights, if supporting women running for office, if supporting immigrants, and if supporting people all over the country for equality means going too far, then I hope all of you go too far every single day.

As she spoke, her voice caught. It was something that happened rarely, and noticeable enough that a former employee, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, had a name for it: the crackle. The Vogue team knew she had to have been hurt by Clintons loss, but theyd never expected confirmation from Anna herself, a woman who almost never showed her emotions at work and, in fact, was so averse to doing so that shed habitually placed sunglasses between any hint of sentiment and the rest of the world for most of her life. She once described them in a CNN interview as incredibly useful for when she wants to hide what shes really thinking or feelinga crutch. But at this moment, the shield slipped and she did something that she hadnt the night before.

She was crying.

Annas way had always been to move forward rather than dwell on what could have been, and that pattern held. But hes the president, Anna said. We have to figure out a way to keep moving forward.

Her statement made, she departed. The staff applauded, and then texted anyone who, for whatever reasona photo shoot, travel, the usual business of the daywas out of the office: Oh my godAnna just cried in front of everyone.

B efore Trump was inaugurated and while her staff were still trying to process their feelings about his win, Anna begrudgingly reached out. Trump had been a welcome guest at many of her events in the past, seemingly as interested in her influence and approval as she was in his checkbook. She arranged to meet with him at Trump Tower, through his daughter Ivanka, a longtime acquaintance. Donald told his wife Melania that Anna was coming to see him. According to Melanias then-friend Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, she had heard nothing from Anna herself about the visit, and was so offended she didnt even say hello when Anna showed up. Melania didnt understand that she had been invited to Annas events not because she was a friend, but simply because she had appeared on the February 2005 cover of