Anna Wintour is stepping down as editor-in-chief of American Vogue after 37 years, Variety has confirmed.
Wintour announced to staffers on Thursday that Vogue will begin the search for a new head of editorial content. She will remain Condé Nast’s chief content officer as well as global editorial director at Vogue, continuing to oversee the fashion magazine’s worldwide output.
As chief content officer of Condé Nast, Wintour oversees all of the company’s brands globally — including Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, AD, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, Bon Appétit, Tatler, The World of Interiors, Allure and more — with the exception of The New Yorker, which is overseen by David Remnick.
Every market where Condé Nast operates has a head of editorial content, each reporting to a global editorial director. The new U.S. Vogue role is part of the company’s organizational structure implemented over four years ago, and will join counterparts in Japan, China, India, Taiwan, the U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Middle East.
Wintour has led the U.S. edition of Vogue since 1988, succeeding former editor-in-chief Grace Mirabella. The longtime editor’s first cover — the November 1988 issue — featured Israeli model Michaela Bercu wearing a Christian Lacroix jacket adorned with a beaded cross, paired with stonewashed Guess jeans.
“It was so unlike the studied and elegant close-ups that were typical of Vogue’s covers back then, with tons of makeup and major jewelry. This one broke all the rules,” Wintour said in a 2012 post on Vogue’s website. “Afterwards, in the way that these things can happen, people applied all sorts of interpretations: It was about mixing high and low, Michaela was pregnant, it was a religious statement. But none of these things was true. I had just looked at that picture and sensed the winds of change. And you can’t ask for more from a cover image than that.”
A new editorial leader at U.S. Vogue is expected to give Wintour the ability to devote more time to the magazine’s global output, in addition to leading all Condé Nast titles except The New Yorker.
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From Variety US