Anna Wintour

Meryl Streep in 'The Devil Wears Prada' and 'Vogue' EIC Anna Wintour. | Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock; Mireya Acierto/Getty. Frankel previously told EW ...

She's very conscious that this is a persona that is existing at the moment because she has that job, and the minute she doesn't have that job, she knows it's going to be different." He wanted the film to portray "the sacrifices you have to make to do that, and one of the sacrifices is not being so nice. Frankel couldn't film at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or Bryant Park (where fashion week was held) because people were afraid of pissing off Anna. He couldn't even film at the Museum of Modern Art because people on the board were affiliated with Anna and afraid of her. The studio insisted they weren't doing "the Anna Wintour story," and Streep insisted she wasn't playing Anna Wintour. Frankel said Streep actually based her character on her experiences with actor/director Clint Eastwood and director Mike Nichols, saying, "The fact that Clint Eastwood didn't raise his voice and Anna Wintour never raises her voice, you can find parallels." On May 21, 2002, Women's Wear Daily reported that The Devil Wears Prada had sold to Doubleday for a reported $250,000. "'I don't think Anna is as interested in the cultural phenomenon that she is as the rest of us are,' he said. The first week of February 2003, The Devil Wears Prada was published. Schneider called and said, "If she wants to sell this book, I can sell it this afternoon." "On May 21, 2002, Women's Wear Daily reported that The Devil Wears Prada had sold to Doubleday for a reported $250,000. Representatives for Wintour did not comment on EW's oral history in 2021, though the editor did tell Barbara Walters in 2006 that she supported the film's release: "Anything that makes fashion entertaining and glamorous and interesting is wonderful for our industry. William Norwich, a friend of Wintour's, is quoted in The Biography noting that "Anna 'really didn't care' about the book even after it spent six months on the New York Times best-seller list," Odell observed. Frankel previously told EW that, years later, he was seated near Wintour at a tennis match in Miami. "When it was over, I made the effort to introduce myself," he remembered.

Over the past three decades, Anna Wintour has been the subject of many a gossip column, and become a pop culture icon in her own right.

She has to think about TikTok. She has to think about Instagram. And what people said to me is that she really cares about traffic. Sources told me that there was only one time that she may have really been in danger, and that was in the '90s when she wasn't photographing enough advertisers' clothing, and it was becoming a concern to the business side. But that icy reputation has been so sticky, and it really started in the mid '80s when she became the editor-in-chief of British Vogue and she cut staff and brought in new staff, she cut columns and longstanding columnists. Williams told me that she was struggling with tennis at one point and she called Anna; she couldn't remember exactly what Anna had said to her, but it enabled her to win Wimbledon. Mark Holgate, who still works with Anna at Vogue, told me that Hugh Jackman wanted to get Anna's advice on 'The Greatest Showman'; he summoned Anna and Mark and some other people on the Vogue staff to the Soho House and made a pitch for the movie and got their advice on it. When she was talking to the Obama administration about potential ambassadorship — which was never offered to her, as I explain — she didn't talk to anybody about that. I was fascinated to learn that she was involved at that level of detail. I say in the book that she likes chicken pot pie because it has everything in one dish — it's got the vegetable, the starch, the protein. I want readers to be able to read this book and make up their mind about what they think about Anna Wintour. Obviously there's a lot, despite the fact that she's a cipher, as you say — and I think that's a great word for her. That isn't really true: Not all of the celebrities get an Anna Wintour check mark on their outfit before they step onto that red carpet — about 80% of them do, but she also has people like Virginia Smith on her team who can help advise celebrities or help the staff figure out what they're going to wear. You see that she grapples with these failures at Vogue and at Condé Nast. You see that she has a warm relationship with her family and her friends. You see that she can be a gracious hostess in her home, be it in her Manhattan townhouse or in her estate out in Long island. "Piecing it together was tedious and a lot of work, but the absolute best reporting that I could verify does appear in the book."

The Vogue editor-in-chief reigned supreme at Monday's Met Gala. A new biography charts the source and strength of Anna Wintour's rule, ultimately asking: ...

“Anna,” a biography by journalist Amy Odell which is out today from Gallery Books, seeks to explain her omnipotence. With typical understatement, she later told former Vanity Fair editor and sometime rival Tina Brown that at the show, she and the Queen discussed “how long we’ve both been in our jobs.” For the longest-reigning British monarch, now 96, this was a rare fashion-week outing, but for the longest-reigning editor-in-chief of American Vogue, now 72, it was business as usual.

In the new biography Anna, several of Anna Wintour's former assistants reveal what it was really like to work for the iconic Vogue editor-in-chief.

The new biography of Anna Wintour has finally arrived and, yes, it is totally the perfect way to nurse your Met Gala hangover. In total, the author spoke with over 250 sources, including some of Wintour's former personal assistants who offered insight on what it was really like to work for the iconic fashion figure, whose management style was so singular that it inspired one departed aide to pen the bestselling book (and eventual hit movie), The Devil Wears Prada. Items are sold by the retailer, not E!

Around Christmas of 1999, Lauren Weisberger rolled into the Vogue office. She had just graduated from Cornell, and editor-in-chief Anna Wintour decided to ...

The ball scene had to be filmed in the American Museum of Natural History, which was, Frankel said, “the one place she had no influence.” Frankel couldn’t film at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or Bryant Park (where fashion week was held) because people were afraid of pissing off Anna. He couldn’t even film at the Museum of Modern Art because people on the board were affiliated with Anna and afraid of her. He wanted the film to portray “the sacrifices you have to make to do that, and one of the sacrifices is not being so nice. She’s very conscious that this is a persona that is existing at the moment because she has that job, and the minute she doesn’t have that job, she knows it’s going to be different.” At one point, Bee turned to her and said, “Mom, they really got you.” When Anna learned about the book, she said to Jones, “I cannot remember who that girl is.” Anna has said to friends, “I’m so bored by me.” This is one reason she doesn’t plan to ever write a memoir. Schneider called and said, “If she wants to sell this book, I can sell it this afternoon.” The film’s production designer even sneaked into the Condé Nast building to take pictures of Anna’s office in order to replicate it. The first week of February 2003, The Devil Wears Prada was published. Weisberger was “a lovely girl,” she added, but “not a great writer, poor thing.” After being on the job for months, Weisberger asked Richard David Story, an editor who was leaving Vogue for Departures magazine, if she could go be his assistant there. She had just graduated from Cornell, and editor-in-chief Anna Wintour decided to hire her as her assistant.