Author: Jerry Oppenheimer
Front Row – Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue’s Editor in Chief is an unauthorized biography of legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Oppenheimer wrote Front Row by interviewing many different people who knew Wintour, including former colleagues, childhood friends, acquaintances and boyfriends, and partners.
The book is very rich in details and follows Wintour’s early life and career path, which always led to the American Vogue she took over from Grace Mirabella in 1988. I did not care much for details about Wintour’s personal life because that does not interest me, but Oppenheimer does paint a picture of the life and character of Wintour. Some things make sense. Wintour is known for being icy and reserved, and now that I know she is the daughter of an upper-middle-class British man and an American woman with connections to American society, it makes sense. But equally, I no longer believe that Wintour is as icy as people describe her. She had an upper-class background and grew up in the UK during the 1970s. What would you expect?
I was fascinated by the story of determination to someday edit the American Vogue, which has guided Wintour throughout her life. Her story resonated with my fascination with the US and my 15-year-long hard work to build a CV that would land me an invite to a big US university, which has indeed happened, just like it happened for Wintour. I also understood her dismay with the way things are done in the UK, which made me laugh because I, too, often flipped out at ‘this is how we have always done things’ mindset, and I, too, have tried to Americanize some things. I was truly surprised by how much similarity I found with Wintour, even though my personal background is nothing like hers.
What surprised me is that Oppenheimer, who does not make a lot of judgments and bases his writing on interviews with real people, describes Wintour as rude. This characterization is based on the description of Wintour’s behavior by many of her colleagues and friends. This has flabbergasted me, and I am not sure what to think of it because I would really not expect a British person of upper-middle-class origin to have poor manners. I wonder if there is some cultural misunderstanding here, or whether too many people who hate Wintour agreed to speak for the book. I won’t claim the book is lying because I don’t know Wintour, but boy, was I surprised to read about this.
Finally, about Wintour’s fashion editing, I really liked how the book describes Wintour’s focus on visual communication and her ability to predict trends and discover new designers. She has indeed gifted the world with Marc Jacobs and many others, and I have also always seen her editorship as very visual. I was pleased to see that this is the general view because so far, I have never found any academic analyses of her work.
In summary, Front Row is an interesting book. I enjoyed it, and if you enjoy reading about the personal lives of famous people, you will enjoy it even more. The only issue I had was that the font is very, very small, which was horrible for my sore and sensitive eyes. I ended up with migraines and dry eyes, and had to buy a neck lamp to be able to finish the book. Therefore, if you have sensitive and sore eyes, it is better to get this on Kindle. I had a paper copy, and it exhausted me.
Thank you for reading!