Fashion powerhouse Anna Wintour is a fearless figure in an industry she knows inside and out – but she has developed a reputation for being somewhat aloof.
It is said that Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada was based on the Brit, who has been editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988.
The 73-year-old’s prowess is felt among most people she meets – even some of the most famous figures who have crossed paths with her.
Last week, she left fans cringing as she appeared to ‘snub’ Kim Kardashian during Victoria Beckham‘s 2024 Spring/Summer show at Paris Fashion Week.
And the SKIMS founder, 42, isn’t the only one rumoured to have fallen out with the legendary style icon.
Anna is thought to have past tensions with a wide array of people, from her protégé Edward Enninful to Tim Gunn and Giorgio Armani.
Her reported ‘feuds’ aren’t confined to the fashion world either, with the editor also said to have had disagreements with actor Billy Porter and rapper Drake.
Here, FEMAIL takes a look at the very famous faces who are thought to have fallen out of favour with ‘Nuclear Wintour’…
EDWARD ENNINFUL
Edward Enninful – who after six years at the helm is due to be replaced by Londoner Chioma Nnadi as editor of British Vogue – is rumoured to have been pushed out of the hot seat by his mentor Anna.
The Mail on Sunday reported he had hoped one day to replace her, but Vogue’s Editor-In-Chief is apparently determined to stay put and will swat any rivals off ‘like a fly’, according to a source.
When he leaves at the beginning of 2024, Edward, 51, will take up a ‘global advisory position’ at Vogue, ‘with the freedom to take on broader creative projects’.
‘He made no secret of wanting the big job [global editorial director] but he hit the glass ceiling and he’d gone as far as he could go,’ a Vogue insider speaking to the outlet explained.
‘He thought he would be in London for a few years and then head for New York, but he now knows that he’s never going to get Anna’s job at Condé Nast.
‘Anna is the undisputed boss. She has seen off many rivals and continues to do so. She could swat him like a fly.’
A fashion source put it more bluntly: ‘I think Edward underestimated her power. He had so much smoke blown up his a**e when he was appointed editor that he couldn’t see his own trousers.’
Former editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman has also said Edward was always ‘playing second fiddle’ to Anna – following a shift which saw editors of Vogue’s European editions replaced by global heads after Conde Nast restructured in 2020.
Edward, who was appointed as editor-in-chief in 2017, had to get stories approved by a new entity called ‘Global’ – indicating a huge loss of autonomy – according to Alexandra.
Although Anna is said to have originally given her tacit approval to his appointment, there was never any doubt in her mind that she was in overall charge from her office on the 26th floor of One World Trade Center in New York.
One Vogue insider told the Mail on Sunday: ‘There’s nothing fun or fabulous or creative about being editor of British Vogue any more. There’s no real power.
‘If you want to put a photograph in the magazine, you have to speak to six people first and get it cleared by Anna, who is in charge of all global editions. She micro-manages everything.’
They added: ‘Edward was suddenly massive. It looked for a while as if he was putting her in the shade and making her look like an old woman, stuck in her ways and on her way out.
‘But Anna Wintour is still a force to be reckoned with and perfectly able to put him in his place.
‘I don’t think she’ll ever step down, not while she’s still breathing. Why would he stay if he knows he’s not going to get the big job at the end of it?’
Now Edward has made a name for himself, there are also huge financial incentives for him to step down from his editor’s role.
The source explained: ‘If he goes to fashion shows as a Vogue editor, the magazine may benefit from that in terms of paid-for advertising.
‘But as a one-man brand he can be paid directly to turn up to events and promote them on social media.
‘He should be able to make more money than the million a year he is said to get now.’
‘He’s used the editorship of British Vogue to make himself into a brand, but he can’t capitalise on that while he’s in position,’ they continued.
‘Once he leaves he’ll be offered no end of consultancies by global names.’
ANDRE LEON TALLEY
Anna says she and late fashion icon Andre Leon Talley – who passed away last year – had a ‘complicated’ relationship, but the pair were understood to be equal parts ardent friends and rivals.
In his 2020 memoir, he wrote that he was left with ‘huge emotional and psychological scars’ after Anna made remarks about his weight.
In one explosive passage, he wrote: ‘She is immune to anyone other than the powerful and famous people who populate the pages of Vogue… I am no longer of value to her.’
He added that the editor-in-chief was ‘not capable of human kindness’.
After his death in January 2022, Anna released a statement paying tribute to Vogue’s editor-at-large, which came amid mounting pressure to speak up following several days of silence.
A source close to her told DailyMail.com she felt she couldn’t rush because she needed time ‘to craft a statement that reflected the loss of someone who had been one of her closest friends and confidants for decades’.
In the statement, Anna said the loss of Andre was ‘immeasurable,’ and that she will miss him despite their ‘complicated past’.
Their long-time friendship came to an abrupt end when she apparently froze him out for being ‘too old, too overweight, too uncool’, he claimed.
But Anna’s tribute to her old friend said: ‘The loss of André is felt by so many of us today: the designers he enthusiastically cheered on every season, and who loved him for it; the generations he inspired to work in the industry, seeing a figure who broke boundaries while never forgetting where he started from; those who knew fashion, and Vogue, simply because of him; and, not forgetting, the multitude of colleagues over the years who were consistently buoyed by every new discovery of André’s, which he would discuss loudly, and volubly—no one could make people more excited about the most seemingly insignificant fashion details than him.’
She continued: ‘Even his stream of colorful faxes and emails were a highly anticipated event, something we all looked forward to.
‘Yet it’s the loss of André as my colleague and friend that I think of now; it’s immeasurable.
‘He was magnificent and erudite and wickedly funny—mercurial, too. Like many decades-long relationships, there were complicated moments, but all I want to remember today, all I care about, is the brilliant and compassionate man who was a generous and loving friend to me and to my family for many, many years, and who we will all miss so much.’
TIM GUNN
Project Runway’s Tim Gunn has previously admitted that he’s scared of Anna after revealing that she was once carried down a flight of stairs because she refused to use a public elevator.
In 2014, the 70-year-old media personality told Page Six: ‘I don’t look into her eyes, because I will be turned into stone.’
The anecdote was published in the fashion expert’s 2010 book, Gunn’s Golden Rules.
He says he witnessed Anna being carried down stairs by her bodyguards in a fireman’s lock after a Peter Som show at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York’s Chelsea.
The reason, he explained, was because she did not want to take a public elevator.
He wrote: ‘We ran over to [an] elevator bay to see if Anna would deign to get on.
‘Then…what did we see but Anna being carried down the stairs…bodyguards had made a fireman’s lock and they were racing her from landing to landing.
‘They carried her to the car,’ he added.
He later told Page Six that the publication of this anecdote in his book sent Vogue into PR-crisis mode.
‘All hell broke loose…her office was insisting I print a retraction,’ he said.
In an effort to defend himself, the author found more witnesses, he says, to call Vogue and report that they had also seen Anna being carried down the stairs.
‘I wasn’t maligning her character. I was simply making a statement of facts,’ he said. ‘It didn’t say anything about her as a person…the cause célébre here was speed.’
BILLY PORTER
Billy Porter hit out at Wintour while criticising the editorial decision to put Harry Styles on the cover of US Vogue in November 2020, which made him the first male cover star.
The actor slammed Vogue’s decision to use a ‘straight, white male’ in their first gender-neutral cover shoot and indicated that Harry was only wearing a dress because it was ‘the thing to do.’
And despite apologising to Harry a year later, the actor, 54, reaffirmed his point in August this year.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Billy once again explained his problem: ‘You’re using my community – or your people are using my community – to elevate you. You haven’t had to sacrifice anything.’
However, Porter argued he doesn’t blame Harry Styles for taking the opportunity to appear on the cover of Vogue.
Instead, he targeted the editor-in-chief: ‘It’s not Harry Styles’s fault that he happens to be white and cute and straight and fit into the infrastructure that way… I call out the gatekeepers.’
The Pose actor admitted he had talked to Anna months before the cover with the former One Direction member was released, but was taken aback by the magazine’s editor.
Calling her a ‘b*****’ he claimed she asked him how Vogue could increase and improve representation – and revealed he was so surprised by her question, he didn’t give her the answer he wished he had given her.
In November 2021, during an appearance on Late Night With Stephen Colbert Billy said sorry to the As It Was hitmaker, admitting: ‘The conversation is not about you.’
GIORGIO ARMANI
Fellow fashion heavyweight Giorgio Armani has previously called Wintour ‘unprofessional’ for skipping his fall 2014 show to fly to France.
The Italian designer was so furious that he held a press conference to openly denounce the U.S. Vogue editor at the end of his show, which fell on the final day of Milan Fashion Week. Meanwhile, Wintour was already in the French capital getting ready for Paris Fashion Week.
‘She took an airplane, dumped [me] and went to Paris…’ said the designer, 89, whose brand was a major advertiser in Wintour’s magazine. ‘It’s not professional.’
He added: ‘She is influential and powerful. But, perhaps, I’m influential as well.’
Giorgio said that Anna assured him that other high-ranking representatives from her publication attended the show in her place, but the designer was not impressed by this.
‘She said she was sending her people. But if you go to see your dentist and he puts you in the hands of his assistant, what’s your reaction?’ he continued.
A spokesperson for Vogue had told WWD that ‘Anna has the greatest respect for Giorgio Armani and everything he has done for Italy and fashion worldwide.
‘Unfortunately, with the fashion calendar now running for more than a month, there are some shows that Anna is not able to attend.’
Giorgio also said that the Camera della Moda, which presides over the schedule, is at fault.
‘When we decided to show the last day, other big brands were involved. But currently this is an empty day,’ he said.
DRAKE AND 21 SAVAGE
Even the music world is not exempt from running into tensions with the Vogue editor and her team.
In November, Condé Nast filed a lawsuit against Drake and 21 Savage, after the rappers created elaborate yet fake Vogue mock-ups, which were handed out by street teams in several cities, to promote their album Her Loss.
The publishers claimed the performers did not get Vogue nor Condé Nast’s permission for the mock-ups.
They were seeking $4 million in damages, claiming the fake magazines had already been distributed fairly widely.
The lawsuit claimed that the rappers put out posters promoting this fake magazine collaboration in many cities.
The lawsuit also alleged that both Drake and Savage’s teams sent out email blasts, ‘celebrating Drake’s Vogue cover.’
Inside the elaborately-detailed magazine there was a photo of Wintour smiling while standing behind him, though that photo was doctored and not authentic.
Along with the $4 million in damages, Conde Nast wanted a judge to shut down the use of the mockups immediately.
In February, Semafor reported that both sides had settled the case out of court, with the rappers agreeing to pay the publisher an undisclosed sum.
However, in July Drake featured what looked to be a gruesome monster mock-up that resembles Anna during a performance.
The AI-generated image with a fringed bob cut and sunglasses – which has never been confirmed to be the fashion icon – appeared during the song Jimmy Cooks, which contains the lyric ‘b***h, don’t tell me that you model if you ain’t been in Vogue’.
