Of course there were times, particularly when you travel, when it's very tough to leave the kids, particularly when they were very young. I would try to take them with me when I could just so they could experience and see a little bit of what a work day involved.
— Anna Wintour
There are so many causes that you care about, but one can't change or take on the world, so one has to really focus on where you feel you can - to use a very overworked phrase - truly try to do something to make a difference.
The young people we hire today at Conde Nast are fearless polymaths.
Of course it would be wonderful for Hillary Clinton to be the first female president, but I think she would be the first to say that she wouldn't want people to vote for her just because she's a woman.
Things change. You walk on the street and get a Starbucks, and things have changed by the time you come back to the office.
We have to reflect the world that we live in.
I get asked all the time, What do you do differently than 10 years ago, or what will you do differently in the years to come?' In the years to come, I have no idea.
I think we're living, in terms of media, in a very democratic age, but I think that we still look at everything through the lens of 'Vogue' and through our own point of view.
It's very important to me that I look good when I go out publicly. I like looking at my clothes rack in the morning and deciding what to pick out. I enjoy fashion.
It's very important to take risks. I think that research is very important, but in the end you have to work from your instinct and feeling and take those risks and be fearless. When I hear a company is being run by a team, my heart sinks, because you need to have that leader with a vision and heart that can move things forward.
I don't think I am that hands-on. I'm much more of a believer in finding a great team of people and trusting them to follow their instincts. They work better when they feel they have freedom and they are trusted.
It is important always to have really original talent. There are lots of good designers that make attractive clothes and make women look beautiful. But at the same time, one doesn't want to lose the idea that there is someone out there who can change the way you look at fashion.
Because of reality television and all these celebrities thinking they can be designers, everyone imagines that they can just become a designer, photographer, or model, but that's not the way things work. People have to go to school, learn their craft, and build a brand - that's the right, healthy way to do things.
There's barely a strand of the modern media that the Kardashian-Wests haven't been able to master, and for good reason: Kanye is an amazing performer and cultural provocateur, while Kim, through her strength of character, has created a place for herself in the glare of the world's spotlight, and it takes real guts to do that.
The Fashion Fund celebrates the real passion that underlies the fashion business, not the frothy world of glamour and celebrity that so often surrounds it.
I love coming in and changing magazines.
I want 'Vogue' to be pacy, sharp, and sexy - I'm not interested in the super-rich or infinitely leisured. I want our readers to be energetic executive women, with money of their own and a wide range of interests. There is a new kind of woman out there. She's interested in business and money.
I think it's very important for children to understand that women work and that it's fulfilling, and it doesn't mean that they love you any less or care about you any less.
We are in a gender-fluid generation.
To be famous these days with no grounding and no substance is not especially difficult. I urge you instead to seek to be relevant, to be agile and educated.
Designers don't live in a vacuum; they are not blind to what's going on. They, too, will be inspired by what they see, and that will come out in their work.
Learning how to be editor-in-chief of 'Vogue' wasn't something that happened overnight.
To me, fashion is ceaselessly fascinating because it is an expression of self.
I think what you have to do in print is to create even more memorable images and more memorable pieces because what one consumes online or in social has a much shorter shelf life, so to speak, so what print has to have is no more weight, but it has to be something that you can't find so easily online. It has to really stand for print.
It's important for young women and men coming out of the fashion schools to think seriously before starting their own collections.
If one comes across sometimes as being cold or brusque, it's simply because I'm striving for the best.
I went to Wimbledon before I could walk. It's just been a lifelong passion.
Fashion today is available to everybody in a way that it's never been before: you've got every designer you've ever heard of working for H& or Target. That's fantastic.
I look for strong people. I don't like people who'll say yes to everything I might bring up. I want people who can argue and disagree and have a point of view that's reflected in the magazine. My dad believed in the cult of personality. He brought great writers and columnists to 'The Standard.'
I'd always been extremely fascinated by the French Nuit Blanche, which is a weekend that they have in Paris where they keep all the museums open until dawn. You can go and hang out in Versailles in the middle of the night and watch the sun come up.
Part of the pleasure of editing 'Vogue,' one that lies in a long tradition of this magazine, is being able to feature those who define the culture at any given moment, who stir things up, whose presence in the world shapes the way it looks and influences the way we see it.
I don't really follow market research. In the end, I respond to my own instincts.
I'm very driven by what I do. I am certainly very competitive. I like people who represent the best at what they do, and if that turns you into a perfectionist, then maybe I am.
To be in 'Vogue' has to mean something. It's an endorsement. It's a validation.
Mental health is an area where people are embarrassed. They don't want to talk about it because somehow they feel they're a failure as a parent or, you know, they're embarrassed for their child or they want to protect their child, lots of very good reasons, but mental health, I feel, is something that you have to talk about.
There is unfortunately a world that still exists that dismisses fashion as being a little bit frivolous and the people who work in it are not so smart.
I'm struck these days by how often people come up to me and ask to take a photograph instead of shaking hands, meeting one's eyes, and having an actual conversation.
Print publications have to be as luxurious an experience as possible. You have to feel it coming off the page. You have to see photographs and pieces that you couldn't possibly see anywhere else.
Fashion is a reflection of the time.
There's no point about whining or complaining or screaming.
In the fact that 'Vogue' is someone that can help guide enormous audiences through this fascinating world, I would like to think we are as influential and actually are now reaching so many more people than we ever dreamt of back in the Fifties or the Sixties.
I wasn't academically successful. And maybe I've spent a lot of my career trying to make up for that.
'Vogue' is the best of everything that fashion can offer, and I think we point the way. We are, you know, a glamorous girlfriend.
I think possibly what people working for one hate the most is indecision. Even if I'm completely unsure, I'll pretend I know exactly what I'm talking about and make a decision. The most important thing I can do is try and make myself very clearly understood.
One doesn't want fashion to look ridiculous, silly, or out of step with the times - but you do want designers that make you think, that make you look at fashion differently. That's how fashion changes. If it doesn't change, it's not looking forward. And that's important to me.
I like having young assistants in my office; they have energy, and I spend time with them to make sure they understand what we're doing. By investing in them, I'm investing in the magazine. All over 'Vogue,' 'Teen Vogue,' and 'Men's Vogue,' there are people who have been through not only my office but also many other offices at 'Vogue.'
I've been very lucky to put women that I sincerely admire on the cover of 'Vogue:' the then First Lady and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, more recently, First Lady Michelle Obama. Those were benchmarks for the magazine, and certainly covers that I've been very, very proud of.
I'm horribly hands-on, I'm afraid. I like to read every caption.
'Vogue' is a fashion magazine, and a fashion magazine is about change.
The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying. This is America, not Saudi Arabia.
