Designing For Anna

Anna Wintour’s, editor of Vogue Magazine, accusers have slung every disparaging word in the book at her, from cold, brusque, dictator to controlling, heartless, witch,  and yet she continues to endure the spiteful arrows of her critics with ne’er a hair out of place, her demeanor remains composed, and her purpose is sure.  

Anna Wintour

As ruler of the fashion world, her sovereignty is to reveal, even if it is only an illusion, to her glamour seekers the perfect world of designers, their fashions, and the famous people who can afford to wear them.

Marc Jacobs Spring 2009

Anna’s queendom requires the complete servitude of her subjects, designers quack and quiver in her presence seeking only to create designs which will please her enough to be featured in her magazine.   She is after all, the personification of Vogue, and if one is to be considered Vogue, then one must design to please Vogue…and so, the creative process becomes a fashion machine, jerking and churning to fill the pages of Vogue Magazine.

May 2009 Cover

Azzedine Alaia intimately knows how it feels to be banished from the queendom…death by anonymity.  Yet, he continues to prevail and shows no sign of accepting Queen Anna’s dictate.  “[Wintour] behaves like a dictator and everyone is terrified of her…but I’m not scared of her or anyone,” quotes Alaia.  Brave words, especially when Alaia is obviously David battling an immaculately dressed, well-armored Goliath.

More Davids definitely would mean Vogue could truly be relegated to the role of “a glamorous girlfriend,” instead of the singular voice of taste and style in fashion.  Fashion voices representative of a democratic process which allows a space for alternative, innovative, and unknown designers and invite erstwhile consumers to partake in the electoral process of an inclusive, revolutionary vision of design.