By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-14 19:41:43 | Updated at 2025-03-14 22:40:38
3 hours ago
Anna Wintour once donned sunglasses and scowled while sitting in the front row of a children's fashion show, former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has revealed.
The Vogue editor, 75, was unable to drop her icy demeanor even while attending the light-hearted event at Manhattan's posh Collegiate School, Carter says.
Carter, also 75, told The New York Times that he 'almost burst out laughing' at the sight of Wintour in her trademark shades at the $66,000-a-year academy.
He added: 'As much as I liked her, I found Anna’s efforts to seem intimidating and powerful almost comical.'
Carter's son Ash attended the tony school alongside Wintour's son Charles.
And Carter, who dishes up the dirt in his new memoir When the Going Was Good, says he saw the powerful journalist behave badly at work and adult social events too.
Speaking to the Times' star columnist Maureen Dowd, Carter detailed Wintour's odd restaurant behavior.
The veteran editor does not ask for a menu and always orders a rare steak.
If dining with Vogue underlings, she will call for the check the moment she has finished - whether her dining companions have eaten their food or not.
Anna Wintour, pictured at Paris Fashion Week alongside singer Tyla on March 11, took herself far too seriously even when off-the-clock, a former friend and colleague has claimed
Former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, pictured in 2019, has served up a slew of gossip about Wintour in his new memoir When the Going Was Good
Wintour pictured in 1992, the year she and Carter became stablemates at publisher Conde Nast. Carter said he was shocked by a successful power grab Wintour mounted over his magazine Vanity Fair in 2013
Carter joked: 'Dinner with her at a restaurant is like something a McKinsey efficiency expert would admire'.
He added that he was often still starving after meals with Wintour and would have to stop for something else to eat on the way home.
The pair were stablemates at magazine publisher Conde Nast during Carter's celebrated tenure as editor of Vanity Fair between 1992 and 2017.
Carter said he preferred Wintour's company before he had to work alongside her and suggested that the huge power she holds has gone to her head.
Dishing out a backhanded compliment, Carter said he was 'impressed' by Wintour's ability to take on 'more and more responsibility' in her seventh and eighth decades.
He said that Wintour enjoys messing with her associates' heads by greeting them warmly one day, but like a 'car attendant' the next.
Carter says he experienced such treatment himself.
The Canadian-born raconteur, who now runs gossip newsletter Air Mail, says he was once left 'speechless' when Wintour mounted a power grab over Vanity Fair in 2013.
Wintour has long been accused of being a nightmare boss, a claim she denies. Her alleged behavior served as the inspiration for the novel The Devil Wears Prada, which was turned into a smash hit movie starring Meryl Streep as Wintour-esque Miranda Priestly
She is said to have taken control of half the magazine's staff 'as blithely as you would tell someone you wanted to change the color of their drapes.'
Carter says that was the moment his friendship with Wintour went south.
She responded graciously to Carter's comments in the Times, insisting he'd been a 'wonderful' colleague before wishing him 'nothing but the best.'
London-born Wintour has been editor-in-chief of American Vogue since 1988.
She's also the global content officer and artistic director for all other Conde Nast publications, which include GQ, The New Yorker and Glamour.
Wintour can stake a claim to being the most successful and influential fashion editor of all time.
She drove Vogue profits to unprecedented heights during the magazine's glory years and launched the careers of fashion designers Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Marc Jacobs.
But rumors of ultra-demanding behavior, imperiousness and snobbery have long haunted her and even led to her being nicknamed 'Nuclear Wintour.'
She became a mainstream pop culture icon in the 2000s after serving as the inspiration for Miranda Priestly, the nightmare editor in The Devil Wears Prada, a novel written by her former assistant Lauren Weisberger.
The book was later turned into a smash hit movie, with Meryl Streep portraying the Wintour-esque Miranda Priestly.
Wintour has previously insisted the negative portrayals of her are unfair.
She's highlighted the decades-long tenures of many American Vogue staffers as evidence that she's a good boss.
Defenders have also suggested it is sexist to criticize Wintour for professional attributes that are often praised when displayed by male executives.
