Under other circumstances, Anna Wintour‘s departure as director of American Vogue after four decades would be the most shocking event in fashion.
Unfortunately for her, this announcement coincided with the frenzy that had taken over the media around the world for Jeff Bezos’ wedding to Lauren Sanchez in Venice.
In fact, according to the Guardian, Wintour’s resignation as director of the magazine considered the bible of fashion took place right during Sanchez and Bezos’ wedding parties.
Although Wintour had received an invitation to the couple’s wedding, she did not attend, citing a trip she had planned, and that in itself was widely commented on, both in the fashion world and in international jet set circles.
Where the former Vogue director was always a guest at the most glamorous parties, being the woman who could “lift” or “bury” designers and labels with a review, while sometimes a look of disgust was enough.
Only this time, according to the prestigious British newspaper, “Anna’s revolution is over. She lost…”. Which didn’t happen on a personal level, of course, since during her years of omnipotence, she acquired considerable wealth and her name is carved in stone above a metope at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
She lost because everything she stood for is over, and nothing highlighted that more emphatically than the presence at the Venice Grand Canal of the top Instagram predators.
As columnist Marina Hyde notes, “Few species are as desperately in need of renewal as the one that eats the rich, which has begun to seem even more smug than the super-rich themselves. I think we can all live without people who adored George and Amal Clooney when they took over Venice for their wedding in 2014, and now “wet their pants” when Bezos-Sanchez do.”
In the Twilight Zone
Wintour chose to refrain from this particular “wetting,” which was honored by Kim Kardashian, who was reportedly snubbed by Anna at a fashion show-and was, of course, queened by Lauren Sanchez.
As director of Vogue, she helped the then-future Ms. Bezos to stand at the MET’s famous gala with the stylistic glamour that the event demands.
On the other hand, British Vogue recently wrote that “Elegance is dead“, a comment that probably should have been approved in the magazine’s chain of command that ended up with New York and the Prada-wearing female devil.
“And surely, someone as – how shall I put it?-sensitive as Anna,” writes Hyde, “might find it difficult this week to watch a line of Kardashians stomping down a series of Venetian piers in a series of $10,000 bras.” In the twilight of her fabulous run, Windour ended up wooing all those personas, and Kim Kardashian was finally accepted to her Met Gala.
It was a tacit acknowledgement of her then-unparalleled ability to create moments online and on social media that consumed the illustrated pages of the magazines the iconic director ran.
Wintour “helped” Sanchez with the outfit selection for the future Mrs. Bezos’ Met debut, and was also given a photo shoot for Vogue.
In other times, both Kim and Sanchez would have had no place in the inner circle of the director who wouldn’t part with her sunglasses but didn’t see the signs that she was no longer pulling the strings.
“Wintour was no longer making the weather. It is said that she somehow ‘advised’ Sanchez on the clothes she would choose for the current wedding festivities. Perhaps the only thing worse than helping Lauren with her clothes is not helping Lauren with her clothes. And yet, if the second Mrs. Bezos wants the clothes, she just buys them,” Hyde points out and continues: “Lauren wants to look very rich, very sexy, and like she’s having a great time all the time. In Venice, in space, at the presidential inauguration.”
The implication according to the Guardian columnist is that she simply doesn’t give a damn what other people, not even Wintour, think of her choices.
“I wear this and I don’t care what you think” is her motto, while Wintour led a world where the appearance of rich women said: “I wear this and I care what you think.”
In conclusion, “for there to be people worried about doing something wrong, there had to be people deciding what was right. And for a long time, the empress of those people was Anna Wintour.”
But not anymore.
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