Anna Wintour
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
But unlike Mirabella, who hid in her office, Anna spent half her time with designers, telling them what to add to collections.
Every hiring revealed her system.
Anna personally screened everyone.
One candidate was rejected for wearing matching pearls.
Too matchy-matchy.
Another almost didn't get past HR for being overweight.
They negotiated Anna giving her at least two and a half minutes for this one, and that one got hired.
She was building a machine where mediocrity had no place to hide.
Glass walls meant no privacy.
Speed meant no procrastination.
Personal approval meant no excuses.
A lot of people manage outputs, Anna managed inputs, control the environment, and excellence becomes inevitable.
The British girl who couldn't type had figured out something profound.
In creative industries, velocity often beats perfection because perfection without deadlines is just procrastination with a better wardrobe.
What Anna did was change Vogue's cover strategy.
Anna puts a $10,000 Christian Lacroix jacket with $50 guest jeans on her first Vogue cover.
The printer literally called the check.
Surely someone had made an error.
No error, just strategy.
To understand why this matter, you need to understand fashion's unwritten law.