NEW YORK (AP) — Anna Wintour ended weeks of fashion-world hypothesis Tuesday when she named Chloe Malle her successor as head of editorial content material at Vogue — however essentially the most highly effective individual within the enterprise is not going anyplace.
Wintour, 75, stays chief content material officer for Condé Nast and world editorial director of American Vogue and its 27 editions across the globe. Malle, editor of Vogue.com, could also be getting into Wintour’s low-heeled slingbacks however she’ll report back to the unique wearer whereas taking up day-to-day operations on the U.S. version. And gone is the storied “editor-in-chief” title that Wintour held for almost 40 years.
Malle, 39, is the daughter of actor Candice Bergen and the late French director Louis Malle. She joined Vogue as social editor in 2011, moved on to contributing editor in 2016 and has held her present place since 2023. She steered all digital content material for Vogue. In June, Malle interviewed the then-Lauren Sánchez forward of her marriage ceremony to Jeff Bezos.
“Vogue has already shaped who I am, now I’m excited at the prospect of shaping Vogue,” Malle mentioned within the announcement.
Malle had emerged as a front-runner
Since late June, when Wintour advised employees that she was giving up her title, a handful of names to succeed her had been tossed round. Amongst them had been Eva Chen, vice chairman of trend partnerships at Meta; Nicole Phelps, world director of Vogue Runway and Vogue Enterprise; and Sara Moonves, editor-in-chief of W journal.
Different names that floated about quickly after the job went up for grabs are Vogue’s trend information director Mark Holgate, British Vogue’s head of editorial content material Chioma Nnadi and Vogue.com’s digital model director Leah Faye Cooper. Malle and Nnadi co-host the Vogue podcast, “The Run-By way of.”
The information that Malle obtained the job comes forward of the newest spherical of reveals at New York Vogue Week, beginning subsequent week, and amid the Venice Movie Pageant, which features a new documentary about her father. Her appointment is efficient instantly.
Malle, a Brown graduate and mom of two younger children, has been outspoken about her liberal-leaning politics, simply as Wintour has.
“I actually love working with Anna, because I love someone telling me exactly what needs to be done and exactly what she thinks about something,” Malle mentioned in a current profile by the Unbiased. “There’s no indecision. There’s no ambiguity.”
Vogue’s previous, and future
Vogue was based as a society journal 134 years in the past. After Condé Nast acquired it in 1909, it turned a conventional business mainstay with fashions on the quilt, static close-up images performed in studios and a concentrate on excessive trend and heavy make-up.
Wintour, a risk-taker who took over the title in 1988, noticed the mass attraction in a broader strategy. She expanded worldwide editions, elevated trend’s connections to popular culture and started placing celebrities, athletes, music stars and politicians on the covers. Wintour went for a high-low strategy to trend and favored storytelling in picture shoots performed outdoor.
She embraced then-emerging designers, together with Marc Jacobs, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, by means of initiatives just like the CFDA/Vogue Vogue Fund. And she or he remodeled the Met Gala from a small, non-public fundraiser to a world occasion and trend’s most necessary night time.
Thought-about the style bible, American Vogue has had a number of notable editors all through its historical past. Previous Wintour had been Diana Vreeland (1963 to 1971) and Grace Mirabella (1971 to 1988), amongst others.
“Chloe has proven often that she can find the balance between American Vogue’s long, singular history and its future on the front lines of the new,” Wintour mentioned within the assertion on Malle’s appointment. Below Malle’s management, direct visitors to Vogue.com doubled, and the location noticed double-digit development throughout all key metrics, in keeping with the assertion on her new job. Web site visitors now constantly reaches 14.5 million distinctive guests month-to-month.
The retirement of the editor-in-chief title brings Vogue according to adjustments all through the Condé Nast universe. When Radhika Jones stepped down as Vainness Truthful’s editor-in-chief earlier this 12 months, her position was changed by a “global editorial director,” present in Mark Guiducci. (Guiducci himself was tapped from Vogue, the place he served most not too long ago as artistic editorial director.) American Vogue joins most each market the place Condé Nast operates within the change to a head of editorial content material, who reviews to a world editorial director.
Although Vogue has editions spanning the world, from Britain and France to China and India, Malle’s focus shall be on American Vogue.
Anna Wintour’s personal future
As Condé Nast’s chief content material officer, Wintour will proceed to supervise each model, together with Vogue, Wired, Vainness Truthful, GQ, AD, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, Bon Appétit, Tatler, World of Interiors, Attract and extra, except for The New Yorker, the place editor David Remnick retains management.
Wintour herself does have a boss. She reviews to Roger Lynch, CEO of Condé Nast.
“In effect, the addition of a new editorial lead for Vogue US will allow Wintour greater time and flexibility to support the other global markets that Condé Nast serves,” mentioned a Vogue assertion in June.
“And it goes without saying,” Wintour joked again then, “that I plan to remain Vogue’s tennis and theater editor in perpetuity.”
She’ll stay on the helm of the annual Met Gala, a significant fundraiser for the style wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork. And she or he’ll keep concerned in Vogue World, a touring trend and cultural occasion the journal started in 2022.
Wintour defined the editor-in-chief shift this manner:
“Anybody in a creative field knows how essential it is never to stop growing in one’s work. When I became the editor of Vogue, I was eager to prove to all who might listen that there was a new, exciting way to imagine an American fashion magazine,” she advised employees.
“Now, I find that my greatest pleasure is helping the next generation of impassioned editors storm the field with their own ideas, supported by a new, exciting view of what a major media company can be,” she mentioned.
