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 the strongest individual within the enterprise isn’t going anyplace.
Wintour, 75, stays chief content material officer for Condé Nast and world editorial director of American Vogue and the journal’s 27 different editions. Malle, editor of Vogue.com, could also be moving into Wintour’s low-heeled slingbacks however she’ll report back to the unique wearer whereas taking on day-to-day editorial and inventive 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 formed who I’m, now I’m excited on the prospect of shaping Vogue,” Malle stated within the announcement.
Malle had emerged as a front-runner
Since late June, when Wintour instructed workers that she was giving up her title, a handful of names to succeed her have been tossed round. Amongst them have been Eva Chen, vp of vogue 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 vogue 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 with Vogue.”
The information that Malle bought the job comes forward of the most recent spherical of exhibits at New York Trend Week, beginning subsequent week, and amid the Venice Movie Competition, which features a new documentary about her father. Her appointment is efficient instantly. Malle’s mom, funnily sufficient, as soon as performed Vogue editor-in-chief Enid Frick on “Intercourse and the Metropolis” with some very Wintour-like traits.
Malle, a Brown graduate and mom of two younger youngsters, has been outspoken about her liberal-leaning politics, simply as Wintour has.
“I truly love working with Anna, as a result of I like somebody telling me precisely what must be accomplished and precisely what she thinks about one thing,” Malle stated in a latest 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 grew to become a conventional business mainstay with fashions on the quilt, static close-up images accomplished in studios and a give attention to excessive vogue and heavy make-up.
Wintour, a risk-taker who took over the title in 1988, noticed the mass attraction in a broader method. She expanded worldwide editions, elevated vogue’s connections to popular culture and started placing celebrities, athletes, music stars and politicians on the covers. Wintour went for a high-low method to vogue and favored storytelling in picture shoots accomplished outdoor.
She embraced then-emerging designers, together with Marc Jacobs, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, via initiatives just like the CFDA/Vogue Trend Fund. And she or he remodeled the Met Gala from a small, personal fundraiser to a worldwide occasion and vogue’s most vital evening.
Thought of the style bible, American Vogue has had a number of notable editors all through its historical past. Previous Wintour have been Diana Vreeland (1963 to 1971) and Grace Mirabella (1971 to 1988), amongst others.
“Chloe has confirmed typically that she will discover the steadiness between American Vogue’s lengthy, singular historical past and its future on the entrance strains of the brand new,” Wintour stated within the assertion on Malle’s appointment.
Below Malle’s management, direct site visitors to Vogue.com doubled, with large progress throughout all key metrics, in accordance with the assertion on her new job. Website 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 Honest’s editor-in-chief earlier this yr, her function was changed by a “world editorial director,” present in Mark Guiducci. (Guiducci himself was tapped from Vogue, the place he served most just lately 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 experiences to a worldwide 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 Honest, 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 experiences to Roger Lynch, CEO of Condé Nast.
“In impact, the addition of a brand new editorial lead for Vogue US will enable Wintour better time and adaptability to help the opposite world markets that Condé Nast serves,” stated a Vogue assertion in June.
“And it goes with out saying,” Wintour joked again then, “that I plan to stay Vogue’s tennis and theater editor in perpetuity.” She’s been an everyday at this yr’s US Open, as in previous years.
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 vogue and cultural occasion the journal started in 2022.
Wintour defined the editor-in-chief shift this fashion:
“Anyone in a artistic area is aware of how important it’s by no means to cease rising in a single’s work. Once I grew to become the editor of Vogue, I used to be wanting to show to all who would possibly pay attention that there was a brand new, thrilling option to think about an American vogue journal,” she instructed workers.
“Now, I discover that my biggest pleasure helps the subsequent technology of impassioned editors storm the sector with their very own concepts, supported by a brand new, thrilling view of what a significant media firm could be,” she stated.
—AP Leanne Italie, AP existence author
