Anna
The Biography
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- 9,99 €
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- 9,99 €
Publisher Description
'Fascinating' Sunday Times
'Deeply sourced and rich with anecdotes' The Times
'Like a nonfiction version of TheDevil Wears Prada' Elizabeth Day
'Odell's extensive reporting dredges up a wealth of delightful details' New York Times
This definitive biography of Anna Wintour chronicles the steep climb of an ambitious young woman who would, with singular and legendary focus, become the most powerful woman in media.
As a child, Anna Wintour was a tomboy with no apparent interest in clothing but, seduced by the miniskirts and bob haircuts of swinging 1960s London, she grew into a fashion-obsessed teenager. Her father, the influential editor of the Evening Standard, loomed large in her life, and once he decided she should become editor in chief of Vogue, she never looked back.
Impatient to start her career, she left high school and got a job at a fashionable boutique in London - an experience that would be the first of many defeats. Undeterred, she found work in the competitive world of magazines, eventually moving to New York. Before long, Anna's journey to Vogue became a battle to ascend, no matter who or what stood in her way. Once she was crowned editor in chief - in one of the stormiest transitions in fashion magazine history - she continued the fight to retain her enviable position, ultimately rising to dominate all of Condé Nast.
Based on extensive interviews with Anna Wintour's closest friends and collaborators, including some of the biggest names in fashion, journalist Amy Odell has crafted the most revealing portrait of Wintour ever published. Weaving Anna's personal story into a larger narrative about the hierarchical dynamics of the fashion industry and the complex world of Condé Nast, Anna charts the relentless ambition of the woman who would become an icon.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The life and influence of fashion mogul Anna Wintour (b. 1949) gets an engrossing examination in this account from journalist Odell (Tales from the Back Row). The daughter of venerated reporter Charles Wintour, who was deputy editor for the London Evening Standard in the 1950s, Anna was exposed early to the "glamorous and intellectual milieu" of the writing world. This proved advantageous when she began her climb up the magazine ranks in her early 20s, beginning in 1970 at London's Harpers & Queen, where, as a fashion assistant, she honed her signature "high-low taste." Following Wintour's move to New York City in 1975 and her stint of freelance writing gigs that eventually opened the doors to Vogue, Odell's snappy narrative charts her relentless mission to make the magazine "the biggest, most valuable... in its category" (which she did) by taking the reins as its editor-in-chief in 1988. As Odell relates, "not emotion, not corporate bullshit, and not losing" would stand in Wintour's way. What scintillates, however, are the intimate details about a famously inscrutable subject—who attributes her signature shades to her "acute light sensitivity" and is a "fiercely devoted" grandmother—as well as the blunt treatment of Wintour's more problematic sides, including her history of body shaming. This fascinating look at an enigmatic figure will captivate sartorialists and Vogue acolytes.
