Holy cow, I just looked it up and Anna Wintour was named Editor-in-Chief of Vogue the year I was born. She’s been Vogue’s EIC for my entire life! So it’s a time of momentous change for Wintour (and me! just kidding) to be stepping down now and relinquishing the reins to Chloe Malle, who was a mere toddler at the time of Wintour’s ascension. She’ll still be Chief Content Officer for parent company Condé Nast, but it’s the end of an era. The timing is also fortuitous and/or unfortunate, depending on your point of view, given that this summer they finally filmed a long-awaited sequel to the 2006 hit The Devil Wears Prada. The movie — based on a book inspired by the author’s experience working as an assistant for Wintour — saw Meryl Streep deliciously play Miranda Priestly, the steely EIC of fictional Runway magazine, who audiences everywhere knew was a take on Wintour. Wintour herself has stayed largely mum on the portrayal, but not so much now! She just told David Remnick of The New Yorker that she thought the movie “was a fair shot.”
Based on the 2003 bestselling novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger, who had previously worked as a personal assistant to Wintour at Vogue, the movie tells the story of an aspiring writer (Anne Hathaway) who finds a job at a top fashion magazine under the direction of a tough-as-nails editor.
Meryl Streep played Miranda Priestly, who is assumed to be based on Wintour. The character became shorthand for difficult-to-please bosses no matter the industry, and Streep earned one of her many Oscar nominations for her performance.
In the past, Wintour has seemed reticent to discuss it all. During a recent appearance on “The New Yorker Radio Hour” podcast, however, the fashion powerhouse actually joked to the host David Remnick that she “went to the premiere wearing Prada, completely having no idea what the film was going to be about.”
“First of all it was Meryl Streep, which, fantastic,” Wintour said. “And then I went to see the film, and I found it highly enjoyable. It was very funny.”
And while she told Remnick, who is an editor at The New Yorker, that “the fashion industry were very sweetly concerned for me about the film, that it was going to paint me in some kind of difficult light.”
Wintour sounds like she both found it delightful and has made peace with it.
“In the end it had a lot of humor to it, it had a lot of wit, it had Meryl Streep,” Wintour said. “I mean, it was Emily Blunt [who played senior assistant Emily Charlton in the film]. They were all amazing. And in the end, I thought it was a fair shot.”
In 2009, she told David Letterman that the film was “fiction” and pointed out that “as my publisher says in the movie, I’m not always warm and cuddly.”
“What I liked about the movie is that it really showed all the hard work that goes into the making of the magazine,” she allowed at the time.
Ok, I’m definitely side-eyeing Wintour’s claim that she went to the premiere “completely having no idea what the film was going to be about.” If that’s really the case, I’d call it an instance where an assistant should’ve been fired! That being said, I think Wintour is striking the right tone here. She knows the rumors about her; in that Letterman clip from 2009 she lists off everything she’s been called over the years, from “Ice Queen” to “Dominatrix.” (Though she doesn’t issue any denials!) So here with Remnick, instead of making her response about her, she touts the comedy, acting goddess Meryl Streep, and she genuinely seems sweetly fond of Emily Blunt. Wintour had a similarly tactful response when Remnick asked her about AOC’s “Tax The Rich” dress at the 2021 Met Gala. Like I said, I think Wintour plays it the right way. Or who knows, maybe she’s loosened up in how she sees herself in the near 20 years since the movie came out.
One thing, though, about the Letterman interview: I watched the clip again and they don’t make it clear in the edit or caption, but the appearance is from August 2009, so I’m pretty sure the movie Wintour is referring to in the quotes excerpted above is The September Issue. That documentary was made by R.J. Cutler (he did last year’s Martha, does he have a type?) and came out in September 2009, tracking Wintour as she oversaw production of Vogue’s September 2007 issue. I think it’s an important distinction that she was praising a doc she was a participant in, as opposed to The Devil Wears Prada. Curiously, I remember watching The September Issue with my father and his visceral take on Wintour was that she was deeply insecure.
Photos credit: Caroline Torem-Craig/Avalon, Avalon.red, Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon, Cat Morley/Avalon
I thought this was a good response.
Honestly, the more I watch the movie or watch clips of it – Miranda is ridiculously demanding and everyone who works with her seems terrified of her – but they all put up with it because of the quality product she produces. I love how Meryl portrayed her, with never raising her voice, because I feel like that’s how a lot of women in those roles have to be – the minute they raise their voices they lose all credibility. Miranda seemed to always be hanging onto her temper by a thread but it worked.
So basically I think the movie ended up humanizing Anna Wintour. She’s not someone I would ever want to work for, lmao, and the title seems very apt, but I think the portrayal could have been a lot worse.
It is way worse in the book. Everyone is worse in the book. I read it a long time ago and remember thinking Andy was god-awful.
She was definitely worse in the book but like you said, so was Andy lol.
Deeply insecure is right. Nobody who’s comfortable in their own skin hides behind oversized sunglasses & bangs like she does. I recall that documentary and the way in which her daughter’s antipathy toward the fashion industry really revealed her insecurities.
Meryl Streep’s portrayal of AW in TDWP is, in its way, a very flattering portrayal.
“Nobody who’s comfortable in their own skin hides behind oversized sunglasses & bangs like she does”
While that could be partly true, one can’t deny she does live in the public eye. That’s a choice she made for herself, but she’s constantly being watched and judged, something I could personally not deal with in that way. So I kind of understand that the sunglasses and bangs can be a way to shut others out if that’s possible in her position. I sometimes walk around with airpods in and sunglasses on for just that reason, and no one is actually interested in or watching me.
Same. Earbuds and sunglasses, if only because I don’t want every tourist in the neighborhood asking me for directions I’m a 5’2″ white woman who lives and works in tourist heavy neighborhoods in NYC – I look like I know where I am going and I look “approachable”
She looks so pretty in the photo without her sunglasses. I never knew she had such nice eyes. She looks good in the bangs. Anyway, the sunglasses definitely harden her, which is maybe what she went for.
If Anna Wintour is insecure and still managed to rule a multi-billion dollar industry, that should be a lesson for all of us.
Hard to believe the movie is that old! I recall devouring ‘The September Issue’, and then a documentary style The First Sunday in May(???) about the behind scenes planning of the Met Gala with glimpses of Anna in it. At one scene some interns and assistants are doing the cards for assigned seating at the tables, and a very young Chloe Malle ( if memory serves) makes a sly wink wink remark about a certain celebrity not being at a premium spot, but rather being placed at the back. I loved all those docu style movies back then, as well as any about the fashion houses.
Insecurity is often a driving force in the lives of highly creative, high achieving individuals. I am reminded of the Henry James quote:
“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”