Anna Wintour is under fire from fellow Condé Nast employees over her multimillion-dollar salary. But the famously frosty American Vogue editor, 72, won’t be fazed, says Laura Craik in The Daily Telegraph. During her 34 years in charge, “Nuclear Wintour” has shrugged off accusations of bullying, colonialism, and being “incapable of simple human kindness”. When an anti-fur protestor once ambushed her in a restaurant and threw a dead raccoon onto her plate, she didn’t even flinch.
The biggest threat to Wintour’s reputation came in 2003, when her former assistant published The Devil Wears Prada, “a barely disguised fiction” about her terrible experience working at Vogue. When it was made into a film three years later, Wintour allegedly said it would “probably go straight to DVD”. Instead, it made more than $300m. So, “in one of the volte faces at which she’s so adept”, she embraced the movie wholeheartedly. She praised it for making the fashion industry look “entertaining and glamorous”, told interviewers she was “100% behind it” – and turned up to the premiere wearing Prada.