I’m reading two non-fiction books at the same time. One is a strange and quite pathetic thing, with a Spanish protagonist. I will not say anything else. The other is Annathe highly documented biography of Anna Wintour which Amy Odell has written and which has not yet been translated into Spanish. It is also a strange text and, like all attempts to portray the powerful Wintour, it promises much more than it delivers.
There are Anna (and in Amy, therefore) a undisguised admiration towards the achievements of a woman with a determination as laudable as it is disturbing. Too much admiration and too little questioning. In Odell’s biography, Anna Wintour is a person who He achieves everything he sets out to do. A woman in whom even false steps are part of a plan. An aunt with short, medium and long term vision.
The pages of Wintour’s life turn as quickly as the book that reviews them. Of being a teenager freaked out in London namely, before 30, considered a enigma and a threat In New York. His is one of the most striking examples of a story that has already become commonplace: that of the boss who, when asking in a job interview “what job would you like to have?” to the candidate, he receives “yours” for an answer. That Anna Wintour responded to Grace Mirabella, director of the American edition of Vogue.
Years later – because that was also part of a plan – Wintour had the job of Mirabella. And there it continues. She is considered one of the most powerful women in the world and when his name was circulated as a possible US ambassador In the United Kingdom, no one thought it was a crazy proposition. But Hillary Clinton, whose presidency depended on Wintour being ambassador, lost the election to Trump. That day the employees of VogueThey saw their boss collapse. It would be the first and the last time. Not even his eternal sunglasses could hide the disappointment that Wintour lived in 2016.
Maybe The Devil Wears Prada (the book and the movie) be the best approximation to the figure of Anna Wintour, to her concept, to her legend. Lauren Weisberger (the writer of the novel) and David Frankel and Alice Brosh McKenna (director and screenwriter of the film) started from material as real as that of Amy Odell (Weisberger was Anna Wintour’s assistant) but they moved away from the mere review of facts and dates to construct a story, that of the assistant of a despotic editor who ends up understanding why his boss is that badass.
In AnnaAmy Odell doesn’t do that and, although she shines from time to time (that description of an Anna Wintour very pregnant and with a glass of wine red in hand), the book stays half done almost all the time. Odell speeds through episodes like the one in Livethe crazy women’s magazine launched by Bob Guccione, creator of Penthouse. Live was famous for including in its pages male nudes Because if men had naked women in their magazines, why would there be fewer women in theirs?
But that bet was too advanced and Live term in the pornographic section of stores from the press, where many people did not dare to take it. Her sales plummeted and the talent of Anna Wintour, her fashion editor, was overshadowed by gentlemen in balls that really only mattered to the magazine’s gay readers. The cover of Live came to have Brian Eno (bare torso) on its cover. There’s an entire podcast dedicated to this suicidal post (Stiffed), but Anna barely dwells on her story. Because, deep down, Anna Wintour’s story is the story of a woman who never looks back. And never without sunglasses.
When no one could see her, he put on untinted prescription glasses to work, but I quickly changed them for dark ones as soon as someone showed up. This image also appears in Amy Odell’s book and provides more literary wealth than thousands of data rechecked a hundred times. The best biographies are those who know how to select the moments that really portray someone. And those who do not kiss the ground they walk on. Although you have to be an idiot not to admire Anna Wintour. Next to her, we are all undecided unfortunates. And shabby.
