American Vogue Seeks New Head of Editorial Content

This story was updated at 6 p.m. EST.

It’s the end of an era.

On Thursday, Vogue said it will be seeking a head of editorial content at American Vogue, ending Anna Wintour‘s 37-year reign as editor in chief of the publication.

Wintour, 75, will remain chief content officer for Condé Nast and global editorial director, Vogue. She told staffers about the change in an editorial meeting Thursday.

As chief content officer, Wintour oversees every brand globally, including Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, AD, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, Bon Appetit, Tatler, World of Interiors, Allure and others, with the exception of The New Yorker, which is overseen by David Remnick. Wintour became editor in chief of Vogue in 1988.

Four years ago, Condé Nast changed its editorial structure, bringing together the editorial teams around the world for the first time. Every market where Condé Nast operates has a head of editorial content led by a global editorial director. The new Vogue U.S. role is part of the company’s organizational design and it will join the heads of editorial content for Japan, China, India, Taiwan, U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Middle East.

Over the past four years, Wintour’s role has expanded with a global responsibility across all brands, in addition to the day-to-day editing of American Vogue.

The addition of a new editorial leader on the U.S. Vogue team is expected to allow Wintour more time to support the markets more equally, in addition to leading all titles at Condé Nast, with the exception of The New Yorker.

While Wintour will be seeking the head of editorial content — a plum role in fashion journalism — she indicated that she is not going anywhere and this will give her more time to work on her global role. She is also a force as co-chair of the Met Gala, which raised a record-breaking $31 million this year for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

Wintour took over the editor in chief role at Vogue in 1988, taking the reins from former editor in chief Grace Mirabella. Wintour immediately began making changes to the glossy fashion magazine and focused more on offbeat downtown fashion than her predecessor. 

Her first cover (the November 1988 issue), featured model Michaela Bercu in a $50 pair of jeans (the first time denim was on the cover of Vogue) with a $10,000 Christian Lacroix sweater in a fun and relaxed shot. Wintour went on to break several fashion magazine taboos, including featuring a man on the cover — Richard Gere — who was photographed with his wife at the time, Cindy Crawford. 

Wintour’s style was so recognizable — the famous bobbed haircut and dark sunglasses — and her personality was so intimidating that it inspired the Miranda Priestly character in “The Devil Wears Prada,” a book written by her former assistant Lauren Weisberger and later made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.

Throughout her tenure, the longtime editor has been well-known for championing younger designers, giving them multiple opportunities to expand their businesses and exposure. Wintour partnered with the CFDA for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, which was set up to help emerging designers and cultivate the next generation of American fashion talent. Since its inception in 2003, 200 designers have received mentoring and a total of more than $8 million. (Only the annual winner and the two runners-up receive a financial grant).

Early in her Vogue career, Wintour told WWD that fashion was “first and foremost.” She said she wanted to get away from the “very perfect” Vogue girl of the past — “the big earrings, the perfect hair.” 

“I just wanted to make the look of the magazine more relaxed, the way I see women in the street,” said Wintour. But while there was initial criticism of the new Vogue and that it had cast aside its traditional audience in favor of a much younger one, she replied, “Sure, but I haven’t met a woman yet who wants to look old.” 

Wintour, who works and lives her life at a blistering pace, is well-known for exerting a great deal of control over the magazine’s visual content. A documentary film, “The September Issue,” by R.J. Cutler, about the production of the September 2007 issue focused on the sometimes difficult relationship between Wintour and then creative director Grace Coddington and the behind-the-scenes drama of putting out the magazine.

In addition to her editing responsibilities, Wintour also supported significant initiatives to drum up retail sales, spearheading Fashion’s Night Out, which got off to a rousing start in 2009 but then ran out of steam by 2013. 

Fashion’s Night Out began in September 2009, and was introduced by Wintour; then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; George Fertitta, the chief executive officer of NYC & Co., and Steven Kolb of the CFDA. It was designed to get New Yorkers and tourists excited about shopping again, and proceeds went to the Sept. 11 memorial. Shoppers were encouraged to donate clothes to benefit the New York City AIDS Fund. The first event occurred a year after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and the city’s retail scene was in dismal shape. Fashion’s Night featured 800 events at retailers across New York City and included more drinking than actual shopping.

“It’s about people’s jobs and livelihoods, putting the fun back into fashion again, that it’s going to be a huge celebration of fashion and everybody within the industry is going to be present,” Wintour told WWD in 2009. “We are all in this together and we are all here to help, and that really was also the thinking behind the event.” 

Wintour has supported Democratic candidates throughout her tenure starting with Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate run and most recently, Kamala Harris’ run for U.S. president. Wintour was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 Birthday Honours. 

Air Mail founder and coeditor and former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter said, “I really don’t know how Anna has juggled all these roles for so many years. I get exhausted just reading all her titles. She deserves to step back a bit. She’s earned it.”

Calvin Klein said, “Anna finally made her decision about the future, which I think is really exciting. It clearly gives her the opportunity to shape Condé Nast the way that she wants it. S.I. [Newhouse Jr., who turned Condé Nast into a powerhouse] and [Vogue’s longtime art director] Alexander Liberman both saw that she was the person for the time — at Vogue and then at all of Condé Nast. Now she is left with the responsibility of choosing the people to run the show except she’s still running the show. For her, it will be, as she has already told the staff, exciting because it’s a new chapter for her. But at the same time, she’s the right person to make the move and to choose the successor.
 
“The thing is Anna shaped Vogue and Condé Nast as she saw fit. Grace Mirabella and Diana Vreeland each had something special, but they did not have what Anna has. Now it’s up to Anna to see the vision and the future of the magazine and who can take it and run with it. She will know. She’s worked with so many people. If anyone would know who is the right person, she would know. Even though there is the [Newhouse] family, S.I. had a special love for the magazine. Now she is the person, who chooses the direction, which it needs to change. The whole print world has changed. It’s a matter of finding who will be the leader, as she has been herself. Who is the next one? She’ll know better than anyone. It’s a really wise move that the family decided that she stays and continues to direct all of the magazines,” said Klein.
 
Thom Browne said, “No will ever really be able to replace Anna. She has supported so many and supported fashion more than anyone. She is the most generous and selfless [person.] We are entering a new world. I don’t know what to expect. We have seen the best. Before we so quickly think about the future, can we please just truly appreciate the amazing past we have lived with Anna Wintour?”

“Anna Wintour has led American Vogue with a sense of purpose, vision and influence over four decades — a feat that’s not only rare, but transformative. She has shaped the global fashion landscape far beyond the pages of a magazine, setting a standard that continues to inspire. Her impact extends far beyond the front row, and will continue to do so,” said Simon Longland, director of buying, fashion at Harrods.

“Anna Wintour created a platinum standard for what it means to be a credible and serious fashion publication editor, and she made all of us other editors better for it. She turned the notion of the frivolous fashion editor on its head, affirming instead the financial and cultural power endemic to the role. Her impact is broad and deep, but what has always inspired me about her reach is her indefatigable support of not only the industry as a business but also emerging talent,” said Ariel Foxman, area vice president, brand and experience at the Boston Seaport, who was editor of InStyle from 2008 to 2016.

Bethann Hardison, activist, filmmakers and former model, said, “I am old-school so the American Vogue’s content still worked for me. I was never that person, who was ready for Anna Wintour to step away from the responsibility of editorial content. But this too shall pass, as eventually all things change. Ms. Wintour is a force that I am not sure can be matched. But as we know, all can be replaced. She has a brilliant creative mind and has made sure many creatives were recognized, and that retailers when possible were brought to task. Our fashion and garment industries have been ushered well with her support and guidance. I don’t see anyone else replacing those abilities. She has cared greatly about the fashion industry internationally. As everything now becomes more instant, our lives are changing as will what we will see within the pages of American Vogue. I am anxious to see what those pages will bare. I will miss Ms. Wintour’s stamp yet I am open to what’s to come.”

Valerie Steele, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s director and chief curator, said, “I don’t see this diminishing Anna’s role in the fashion world. She’s already moved up at Vogue and more internationally. What we’ve seen internationally with media in general is that it’s harder for magazines to have the authority that they used to have, because so much content has moved online. The enthusiasm for magazines continues to exist, but it’s for indie magazines like The Gentlewoman that have their own narrow but deep constituencies. I’m not sure there’s anything that Anna Wintour or any of the editorial directors under her can do to change what seems to be a historical media development, where things have moved away primarily from paper especially when it comes to middle-of-the-road or mass audiences. 

“The brand name Vogue evolves, but the magazine part of it probably is restricted in many ways. It’s a free-floating brand that is probably still the number-one fashion brand in many ways. And we see how important Anna and Vogue are to other parts of the fashion world, including designers. With the [CFDA] Vogue Fashion Fund supporting young designers, you see what a crucial part that is of the Vogue brand that can help move smaller, indie talents up the ladder,” said Steele.

Stuart Emmrich, former editor of the New York Times’ Styles, and Vogue.com, said, “Anna is a terrific editor, of course, but above all she has been brilliant at brand-building, both for Vogue and herself. Who else but Anna would show up to the premiere of ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ actually wearing Prada? I really think her next step should be to teach at Harvard Business School about how to successfully build a global brand.”

Amy Odell, journalist and author of “Anna: The Biography,” said: “I was surprised even though she’s 75. She’s kind of an extraordinary 75, right? Obviously, this had to happen at some point. It seems to me that she’s been in legacy cementing mode recently. She participated in The Washington Post article, where Robin Givhan talked to her abut The Met Gala and her activism. The announcement today felt very controlled. I think it’s a big deal. It’s a bombshell, but it didn’t feel chaotic to me.

“It’s really hard to run a media brand in 2025, when media seems to be driven by individual personalities. With the media brands that thrived in the 1990s at Condé Nast, it was about the brand versus someone’s face that you could identify on Instagram telling you about fashion. If you’re not going to sell magazines on newsstands, do you just sell experimental covers that make you happy and are fun versus chasing newsstand sales? Anna was really good at that. Is success at Condé Nast having 20 YouTube shows that you can monetize and are super popular? The problem that legacy media has is there are so many platforms. How do you prioritize which ones you want to be on, and be big on? It’s impossible. Vogue probably has more resources than many. But do you need to a podcast, and YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and your website. And what’s happening with traffic and affiliate revenue? What’s the right balance of all that?”

As Wintour steps back and gives up day-to-day control over Vogue, she will start to leave a cultural void no other single person is positioned to fill, according to Jennifer Heinen, a London-based research psychologist who specializes in fashion. 

“What makes her such a powerful figure in the end, is she fused aesthetic authority with emotional distance, which is mind-boggling from a psychological perspective,” Heinen said. “That combination that she did created fear and reverence, and psychologically it positions her as the kind of figure people wanted approval from, but rarely felt safe around. So it’s a different kind of power. That emotional effect was a big part of her leadership.

“She made fashion about status and she made it almost unachievable,” Heinen said. “She taught people to associate their clothing with value and acceptance.…The legacy she has built with this seeking for approval, not being able to reach her, it is kind of a contradiction.”

If it is a contradiction, it’s one that’s stood strong for decades. 

“Her consistency, which includes the aesthetic, her persona, her power, her influence, built this kind of symbolic safety,” Heinen said. “You kind of always knew what Vogue stood for.”

Now change is coming to Vogue and the industry’s figurehead.

“The fashion world must kind of reorient,” Heinen said. “We might have to consider that there will be multiple voices that are going to be more influential in the future, but the tone of her influence, which was very strong and very loud, is going to soften. So this elite aspiration will shift to an emotional authenticity and a social resonance,” said Heinen.