Anna Wintour revealed Thursday that she plans to leave her post as head of editorial content at American Vogue.
The shock announcement was first reported by fashion industry bible Women’s Wear Daily after Wintour shared the news in a staff meeting Thursday morning.
Wintour, 75, has been editor in chief of Vogue for 37 years, having first taken the role in 1988. She’s become known for her ubiquitous presence in fashion front rows and inspiring the character of Miranda Priestly in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada, where she was portrayed by Meryl Streep.
Wintour didn’t reveal when her last day will be, but American Vogue is already seeking a new head of editorial content.
However, she will stay on as global editorial director of Vogue, and as global chief content officer of Vogue parent company Condé Nast.
Born in Hampstead, London, Wintour began her storied fashion journalism career more than 50 years ago, when she became an editorial assistant at Harper’s & Queen in 1970.
In 1975, she moved to New York to become a junior fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar. She then joined New York Magazine as a fashion editor in 1981 before a bidding war with Vogue landed her a role as the magazine’s first-ever creative director under then-editor in chief Grace Mirabella in 1983.
Wintour was then briefly the editor in chief of British Vogue in 1985, before returning to New York to take over House & Garden. She assumed her role at American Vogue three years later, in 1988.
As editor-in-chief of Vogue, she has been the most recognizable face of fashion journalism and the fashion industry’s most powerful tastemaker, known as much for her feuds and obsessions, her running of the Met Gala, and her Democratic politics as for the contents of her magazine.
She and Donald Trump have long been rivals, with Trump lashing out more than once at her refusal to put his wife, Melania, on the magazine’s cover since he entered politics. The first lady covered Vogue in 2005, just weeks after her wedding to the future president.
Perhaps Wintour’s most famous feud was with Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley, who died in 2022. The pair, both omnipresent at fashion industry events, were once best friends, with Wintour promoting Talley to creative director when she became editor in chief and Talley calling her “the most important woman in my universe.”
But their relationship soured after Talley left the magazine in 2013, and in 2020, the former editor wrote in his memoir The Chiffon Trenches that Wintour had frozen him out because he was “‘too old, too overweight, too uncool” for her image. Talley died in financial turmoil at his home in White Plains, not long after his landlords revealed he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent.
Wintour also butted heads with another colleague, former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter, who told The New York Times in March that he “found Anna’s efforts to seem intimidating and powerful almost comical.”
Carter has said their friendship declined after Wintour was promoted to Artistic Director of Condé Nast—which also owns Vanity Fair—in 2013, at which point she abruptly transferred half of Vanity Fair’s staff to positions that would report directly to her instead of him.
“I have great affection for Anna, but she took to power rather than being the cozy, conspiratorial friend she used to be,” wrote Carter in his 2025 memoir When the Going Was Good.
Beyond her famous feuds, Wintour has no shortage of famous friends. Former members of her circle include Diddy, who hosted the Met Gala after party in 2023; Ye, who covered Vogue with ex-wife Kim Kardashian before Wintour cut ties over his antisemitic tirade in 2022; and Karl Lagerfeld, who faced allegations of racism, sexism, and homophobia before his 2023 death.
Her slightly less controversial famous friends include supermodel Kate Moss, designer Marc Jacobs, and the Beckham family.
Wintour is twice divorced and was romantically linked to British actor Bill Nighy. There has been mounting speculation that her daughter, Bee Shaffer—from her first marriage to child psychiatrist David Shaffer—is being groomed for a significant role at Vogue or Condé Nast.
Wintour was last seen at the wedding of her close friend Huma Abedin to billionaire Alex Soros in the Hamptons, which was lavishly photographed for Vogue and which the editor had been part of styling.
