The knives are out for Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour, who is as close to royalty as it is possible for a fashionista to be, was at Buckingham Palace last week to collect an OBE in the Queen's birthday honours. As she affixed the red ribbon of her medal to the shoulder of her suit, selected from the latest Chanel autumn/winter collection, she mused that "It's a great honour, but many of my American colleagues are not quite sure what it is."

For two decades, the London-born Wintour has edited American Vogue, making it the world's most influential fashion journal, and yet, even now it not clear that many of her fellow US citizens are quite sure who she is.

Her force of personality has even close colleagues trembling in their Manolos, but she combines it with a charm that has seduced advertisers into filling 2,700 pages of advertising last year and an instinct for American culture that maintains Vogue's readership at around 10 million. It is a magazine that appeals both to the moneyed women of Manhattan and the chattering classes of the Midwest.

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Yet the hat pins are still out for her, the stilettos sharpened and ready to strike. Wintour, 59, might be a leading player among the dramatis personae of the ruthlessly competitive New York media scene, but the desire to see her depart the stage, in some quarters, has grown almost palpable. With her current contract at Condé Nast coming to an end, and ahead of her 60th birthday next November, the rumours of her standing down have reached a new intensity.

The New York website Gawker claimed yesterday that Si Newhouse, the 81-year-old head of Condé Nast, had extended his annual winter vacation in Vienna in order to spend time in Paris meeting Carine Roitfeld, the slender and highly regarded editor of ParisVogue. Drooling as it speculated, Gawker punted the "hot delicious rumour" that Roitfeld was being lined up as Wintour's successor, a notion that it claimed had served as a tasty appetiser for Condé Nast colleagues dining at New York's Waverly Inn.

A week earlier, a diarist from New York magazine's fashion blog, approached Wintour at the National Book Awards and asked her bluntly if she was about to quit. "I'm so sorry, I think that's an extremely rude question. Please leave me alone," replied the editor. Undeterred, the journalist asked again: "May we ask what you would do if you did retire?" At which point, Wintour was reduced to a terse: "No. Just go away."

All this is grist to the mill to those who seek to portray the Briton as an ice woman, a real-life female version of the sort of upper-class English baddie beloved by Hollywood and acted out by Charles Dance or Christopher Lee. So frosty is this snow queen perceived to be, that she is habitually referred to by the nickname "Arctic Wintour", although once upon a time, her detractors preferred "Nuclear Wintour".

As one fashion journalist put it yesterday: "People are scared of her. I'm scared of her. She's scary, formidable and frosty."

The personal attacks peaked two years ago with the release of The Devil Wears Prada, the film adaptation of a fashion novel by Lauren Weisberger, a former personal assistant to Wintour at Vogue. Commentators did not hesitate to make the comparison between Miranda Priestly, the domineering fashion magazine editor character played by Meryl Streep, and Wintour.

"She's had to put up with an unbelievable amount of nastiness, mainly from female journalists because of jealousy," says Colin McDowell, the founder of the cutting edge festival Fashion Fringe and editor-in-chief of the website Distill (www.distilldigital.com). "Of course, all these hacks, who have crawled halfway up the ladder and then stopped, exhausted, are going to look up and say 'I don't like her'."

McDowell harbours no such feelings. He sees Wintour as being "focused on excellence", rather than ruthlessly determined. "She is the most important person in the international fashion world, more important than any designer. She leads the industry and has used American Vogue as the central industrial tool for disseminating what's important to her, which is fashion that sells," he says admiringly.

Wintour has become a target for environmentalists because of her determination to wear fur. The organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) has made her a favourite target. Peta's international president, Ingrid Newkirk, another English-American, has relentlessly pursued the editrix, once approaching her in a Four Seasons hotel and tossing a dead racoon on to her plate. Wintour discreetly covered the deceased mammal with a napkin, and placed an order for another pot of tea.

"She has stuck to her beliefs," says McDowell. "She has been attacked, had dead animals thrown at her, custard pies. She always comes away with her dignity – she never shouts, she never screams."

***

The idea that Wintour might step down is not wholly fanciful. Aside from the contract issue, her predecessor Grace Mirabella left the editor's chair at the age of 59. The Englishwoman has thoroughly proved herself and, according to one Condé Nast source quoted by the New York Post last month, "She feels she has done it all and had enough."

These are not the happiest times for magazines, especially high-end titles. The pain of Wall Street has had a direct impact on the sales of the luxury goods companies that are Vogue's most important clients. As sales have declined, so have advertising budgets, with the result that Wintour's magazine has in recent months been thinner than she would have liked.

More damaging have been the failings of some ventures to which she has been closely linked. In October, Condé Nast announced that it would be cutting back the much vaunted Men's Vogue from 10 issues a year to two. Meanwhile, the music-led Condé Nast title Fashion Rocks has been put "on hiatus for 2009", to use the words of the company's president Richard Beckman, who has been alarmed by the scale of the advertising downturn. Both those titles are overseen by Wintour.

But what of the idea that Roitfeld might be tempted to cross the Atlantic and become Wintour's replacement? The role would surely appeal to the ambitious Parisian, who had previously been linked to the top job at Harper's Bazaar, the biggest rival publication to American Vogue and also edited by an Englishwoman, Glenda Bailey.

In reality, the chances of Newhouse offering Roitfeld the position appear minimal. Senior sources at Condé Nast yesterday virtually laughed the idea into touch. "I would eat my hat if such a changeover came about," said one. "It is borderline theatre of the absurd."

The reason for the disbelief is that French Vogue is a vastly different proposition from its American counterpart. Roitfeld is considered to be the most radical of all the Vogue editors. "She's allowed to do the frilly frou frou fashion in Paris, but Anna Wintour has to cater to Middle America," one fashion journalist pointed out yesterday.

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Roitfeld's Vogue has been described as "the polar opposite" of American fashion magazines, hardly considering whether the clothes that it shows in its shoots are wearable or accessible to the readers. It has little interest in putting Hollywood actors on its cover, preferring to profile edgy musicians or the youngest, newest catwalk models. One publishing industry source yesterday described French Vogue as somewhere between other editions of Vogue and the British fashion and culture magazine Pop.

Besides, Condé Nast sources say that Roitfeld does not possess the experience to take over at American Vogue, particularly when difficult economic conditions demand stable leadership. "Not at this tricky moment would you replace a knowledgeable editor who knows the American market thoroughly with an editor from Europe who is not experienced at that type of magazine."

This is not to say that Wintour is only interested in fusty clothing. She has been pivotal in the careers of highly creative designers including John Galliano and Marc Jacobs, recognising their talents, and going out of her way to secure them backers and venues for their shows.

If Wintour is today an archetype, she has worked at it. She has worn her hair in her trademark Louise Brooks bob since the age of 14, when she was a pupil at the North London Collegiate School. Her father, Charles Wintour, edited the London Evening Standard and, just as his daughter would later become regarded as an ice maiden, was known as "chilly Charlie" because of his cool manner. He helped secure his 15-year-old daughter a job at the famous fashion boutique Biba and she was soon a fixture of London's Sixties club scene. Anna Wintour briefly dated the gossip columnist Nigel Dempster before she became a fashion journalist, beginning her career as an assistant at Harper's & Queen.

In her mid-twenties she moved to New York where, according to her biographer Jerry Oppenheimer, she worked on a women's adult magazine, Viva, hung out with Bob Marley and briefly dated Eric Idle before arriving at Condé Nast at the age of 33. Despite rivals repeatedly referring to her cold demeanour, the man described as the love of her life was the playboy Jon Bradshaw, 12 years her senior. In 1984 she married the child psychiatrist David Shaffer, with whom she has two children. The couple divorced in 1999 and Wintour now dates the millionaire communications executive Shelby Bryan. "She's ambitious, driven, insecure, needy and a perfectionist," begins the foreword to Oppenheimer's 2005 biography Front Row. "And she's considered the most powerful force in the $100bn fashion industry."

Wintour rose to the editor's chair at American Vogue in 1988, transforming it from the safe magazine she had inherited from Mirabella, who had been in the job for 17 years. She rises at 6am to play tennis and have her hair done, before arriving by 8am at the office, inside which she is known to wear sunglasses. Though designers crave her presence by their catwalks, she has never lost sight of the importance of making the clothes that appear in her magazine feel accessible to her readership, a crucial factor in her success in maintaining circulation at around 1.2 million. "The success of American Vogue," says a Condé Nast colleague, "is a reflection of the personality of Anna Wintour and the knowledge she has of American women and American society."

But though she understands her market, some Americans, it appears, still don't get Anna Wintour. While the barbed, and often anonymous comments continue to come in from fearful yet spiteful rivals, the famous editrice is hoping to soon be shown in a better light. A new documentary on the making of an issue of Wintour's Vogue, a project with which she fully co-operated, is expected to be screened as part of the next Sundance film festival. It will, she hopes, be fairer than The Devil Wears Prada. In any case, as she pointed out last week at Buckingham Palace, Wintour wears Chanel.

Always in fashion: The story of US Vogue

1892: 'Vogue' is founded by Arthur Baldwin Turnure as a bi-monthly fashion and society magazine. In 1909, it's taken over by Condé Nast.

1914: Edna Woolman Chase is appointed editor-in-chief of American 'Vogue', a position she holds for 38 years.

1963: Diana Vreeland is appointed editor and encourages the magazine to attract a younger audience fascinated by the cultural and sexual revolutions of the Sixties. Vreeland helps to make a household name of Twiggy, and discovers Edie Sedgwick.

1973: 'Vogue' becomes a monthly publication under the editorship of Grace Mirabella, who is later accused of losing potential readers to newer rival magazines such as 'Elle'.

1988: Anna Wintour's first issue as editor features a full-length image of a model in a Christian Lacroix jacket and jeans, signalling a more inclusive approach to fashion.

1990: The magazine helps to bring about the era of the supermodel, bowing to the 'Holy Trinity' of Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista, who tells 'Vogue': "We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day."

1992: Richard Gere becomes the first man to appear on the cover of 'Vogue', with the supermodel Cindy Crawford, then his wife. George Clooney is the second cover man, in 2000, photographed with the Brazilian model Gisele.

1998: Hillary Clinton becomes the only First Lady to appear on the cover of 'Vogue'. It has been customary, however, for the President's wife to be photographed inside the magazine ever since Eleanor Roosevelt's tenure in the White House. Michelle Obama is widely expected to become the second First Lady to grace the cover of 'Vogue'.

2003: Wintour's former assistant, Lauren Weisberger, publishes 'The Devil Wears Prada', featuring a tyrannical fashion editor, played in the film by Meryl Streep.

2008: 'Vogue' features Gisele on its April cover alongside basketball player LeBron James. Critics say the photograph, by Annie Leibovitz, perpetuates a racial stereotype. Tim Walker

Divas of distinction: How they compare

Anna Wintour

Route to the top

The Briton is the daughter of former Evening Standard editor Charles and sister to The Guardian political Editor Patrick – not to mention a former squeeze of gossip columnist Nigel Dempster – but it is fashion that has obsessed her since her early teens. In 1970 she joined Harper's Bazaar, telling colleagues that she would one day edit Vogue. Voracious for advancement, the following decades would see Wintour zip to and fro across the Atlantic, via British Vogue and House & Garden, eventually rising through the ranks of the glossiest publishing house of them all, Condé Nast. Divorced from her husband David Shaffer in 1999, the couple have two children Charlie and Bee, and Anna, 59, now steps out with millionaire Shelby Bryan – though her fondness for taking male sports stars including Michael Phelps and Roger Federer as arm candy to fashion shows has frequently been noted.

Management style

Distant, volatile, perfectionist, ruthless, brilliant – take your pick. Wintour has commanded that entire fashion weeks are scheduled around her needs. It has been said (by the British journalist Toby Young, among others), that in the Condé Nast building co-workers do not step into a lift if the diminutive editor-in-chief is inside. In 2006 even her right-hand man, the mountainous fashionista Andre Leon Talley, admitted to Oprah Winfrey that "Anna doesn't like fat people".

Rarely seen without

Giant Chanel sunglasses; bobbed hair; fur; a force-field of terror.

They say

"The notion that Anna would want something done 'now' and not 'shortly' is accurate. Anna wants what she wants right away," Barbara Amiel on The Devil Wears Prada

"One of the most frightening women in the world. I don't care what anybody says." Candace Bushnell

"The Red Sea parts when she walks through the room," André Leon Talley

She says

"I think women look better than they've ever looked. And if a woman feels bad about herself, then there's something more seriously wrong with that woman."

"In the face of my brothers' and sister's academic success, I felt I was rather a failure. They were super bright so I guess I worked at being decorative. Most of the time, I was hiding behind my hair and I was paralytically shy. I've always been a joke in my family. They've always thought I am deeply unserious."

Carine Roitfeld

Route to the top

Roitfeld, 54, the daughter of a Russian film producer and a Parisienne, grew up in the French capital and started modelling at 18. At French 'Elle', she shifted from posing to working behind the lens, as a fashion stylist. On a shoot for 'Vogue Bambini' in 1990, Roitfeld met photographer Mario Testino and the pair began a long and fruitful creative partnership. In the Nineties, another partnership, this time with Gucci designer Tom Ford propelled her into the top tier and her louche personal style inspired Ford's bestselling collections until she was poached for Paris 'Vogue' by Jonathan Newhouse in 2001. Roitfeld has been together with her partner Christopher Restoin, the founder and owner of a shirt business, for three decades, and they have two children, Vladimir and Julia – who is face of a Tom Ford fragrance.

Management style

Editorially, Roitfeld pushes the boundaries of taste. Irreverant and youthful, she'd never been a boss or worked at a desk before 2001. And don't say she's not aware of equal opps: "People always say that I weigh my staff," the pin-thin editrix has said, "And it is totally wrong. All my girls are very skinny and very chic and very beautiful. And if they are not beautiful, well, then they are very charming."

Personal style

She totters on bondage-style stilletoes (the highest manufactured), and often wears a pencil skirt and an oversized fur "chubby"; her perfectly tanned bare legs are a marvel, whatever the weather, as is her preternaturally shiny, ironed hair.

Rarely seen without

An adoring photographer on her arm, the black-clad Paris 'Vogue' stylist Emmanuelle Alt; a sun tan.

They say

Detractors have called her photographs "porno chic".

She says

"Me, I wear a lot of Japanese pieces mixed with a bit of classic Hermès and Prada. Even though jeans suit me, I never wear jeans."

"Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), they like to pay attention to her [Wintour], not to me," she says, "so this is good for me.

"I think my craziness and glamour come from my father. The Russians are more up and down than the French.

"The ultimate 'Vogue' to do would be the American 'Vogue', because it's 'uge... but I have more fun doing my magazine. We can smoke on the cover, we can show tits. I think I would be very frustrated not to be able to do all my craziness that I'm able to do here in France." Susie Rushton