Fashion’s favorite ice queen allegedly insulted the president-elect on public transportation recently. She publicly apologized in the pages of British tabloid the Mirror:
Miss Wintour, the inspiration for hit film The Devil Wears Prada, said: “Trump’s foundation has done nothing.” She added: “Its board is packed with relatives, and he’s going to use his presidency to sell himself and his brand and profit personally for himself and his family.” But when contacted by the Sunday Mirror Miss Wintour said: “I immediately regretted my comments, and I [apologize]. I hope that President-elect Trump will be a successful president for us all.”
I’ve witnessed the relatively-relaxed Vogue creative director Grace Coddington, unmistakable for her shocking red hair, riding the downtown No. 1 train. (Coddington got off at Herald Square, naturally.) But impeccable Anna Wintour on a crowded commuter train?
Whether or not Wintour made the candid comment where and how she’s purported to have done, her apology could still serve to smooth things over with the President-elect—particularly after Vogue lavished its first ever endorsement on Hillary Clinton.
As Noemie Emery cuttingly catalogued in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Vogue‘s adoration of Clinton is nothing new:
In 1993, when she was under assault as the uber-assertive “new kind of First Lady,” Vogue was there with a photo shoot that made her look like an old kind of temptress, “a dishy, dreamy, First Lady posing—head tilted over and blonde hair draped—like the old Catherine Deneuve perfume ads Johnny Carson loved to mimic,” as Maureen Dowd wrote at the time. The Irish Times called her “Hillary the sex goddess,” and the Economist ran a story on her “pussycat look,” with the headline “Come up and vote for me sometime.” Five years later came Monica and impeachment, the blue dress, the vast right-wing conspiracy, and the meaning of “is,” and there she was on Vogue’s Christmas cover, beaming and radiant in sumptuous red velvet, with a story that opened, “The First Lady has never been more popular—or effective,” and contained quotations to the effect that “She’s a phenomenal person” and “she looks much better and younger than on TV.” In December 2009, when she was secretary of state and made a trip to Africa, Annie Leibovitz came along to take a great many carefully posed and retouchable photos, and Jonathan Van Meter to write pages and pages on how human she was, how lively she was when one got to know her, and how people loved her so much. In 2012, he followed up with a gushing story on Chelsea. And in February 2016, he was there again, with a story called “Will Hillary Clinton Make History?” timed to coincide with the nomination prize that had eluded her grasp just eight years earlier, and with every word shouting, “Yes!” The pictures this time were so retouched as to be unrecognizable.
Certain diplomatic ambitions might also account for Wintour’s editorial, sartorial, and social commitments to Clinton. In 2012, when Wintour was hoping to be named ambassador to Britain, Donald Trump took to his preferred medium to recommend her, his old friend and wedding guest, for the position she coveted. Of course, it’s hard to imagine his appeal to President Obama would have helped her chances.
Read more from Emery here.
