Fashion is the top choice for wannabe journalists visiting the pages of Up To Speed’s magazine journalism course and the second most popular dream job for them is be an Editor.
Last night’s re-screening of The September Issue on More4 was a timely reminder of the glossy, glamorous and downright scary world of Vogue.
And of the power and influence enjoyed by some magazine editors.
Courtiers and couturiers bowed, scraped and fawned in reverence as they offered up photographs, designs, faces and collections for the approval of the undisputed queen of American fashion.
Anna Wintour has presided over Vogue USA for 22 years and Emmy Award winning director RJ Cutler’s film showed the creation of the September 2007 issue of the magazine. It was first aired last year.
This was the reality that inspired the Devil Wears Prada(2006) and the hit American TV show about a fashion magazine intern Ugly Betty, which ran for four series on ABC.
So, how does an Englishwoman in New York manage to wield so much power and influence? How do you get to become editor of Vogue?
In the September Issue, Ms Wintour suggests that she may well have inherited the aloof and autocratic leadership style that has seen her dubbed the “Nuclear Wintour” from her father. Charles Wintour was nicknamed “Chilly Charlie” when he was editor of the London Evening Standard. He was also one of the Twentieth Century’s most highly respected journalists.
Charles Wintour was a decorated war hero when he joined the Standard as a leader writer. A year later, the Standard’s Canadian owner Lord Beaverbrook hired another young man with a distinguished war record, Milton Shulman. Shulman, who had grown up in Canada, was to become one of Britain’s most distinguished theatre critics. And like Wintour, he too was to see one of his daughters become editor of Vogue. Alexandra Shulman has been editor of the magazine in this country since 1992.
Although their daughters were not contemporaries, the two editors-to-be followed similar paths. Both attended independent day schools in London and then worked their way up the ranks at glossy magazines. Anna Wintour joined Harpers and Queen as an editorial assistant after North London Collegiate School and Alexandra Shulman went on from St Paul’s Girls’ School to Sussex University before joining Tatler.
It would be tempting to conclude that Anna and Alexandra each owes her success to paternal influence and a well-heeled shoe-in into the impregnable fortress of fashion writing.
But it takes more than connections to reach the editor’s chair and to rule the roost for forty years between them. Both women have ink in their veins and they may well have inherited some of the personality traits, which drove their respective fathers to the top.
Both women have also ridden out storms of controversy during their time in charge. Wintour was criticised for featuring fur and for courting celebrities and Shulman was accused of feeding a size 0, “heroin chic” when she put a waif-like Kate Moss on one of her covers.
So what have they put in this September’s issues?
London is featuring Kate Moss and in New York Halle Berry is on the front cover of the magazine.
And in the meantime, former Up To Speed student Jessica Bridgeman is making her own mark in fashion by working for Bauer Media’s online fashion portal Cocosa. Jess, 20, sailed through our course straight after her A levels and is the first journalist in her family.
Tags: Alexandra Shulman, Anna Wintour, Charles Wintour, Cocosa, director RJ Cutler, editorial assistant, Entertainment/Culture, Evening Standard, Fashion, Jessica Bridgeman, Kate Moss, London Evening Standard, magazine journalism courses, Milton Shulman, NCTJ, NCTJ courses, North London Collegiate School, online fashion portal, Publishing, Shulman, St Paul’s Girls’ School, Sussex University, Tatler, the Devil Wears Prada, The September Issue, Ugly Betty, Vogue, Wintour