6 BUN THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020the publishing industry, Ms. Wintour — she
is simply “Anna” to those in the know, or
those who want to be — has become a singu-
lar cultural figure. After establishing her-
self in fashion, media and entertainment in
the first part of a career that stretches to the
1970s, she has more recently become a polit-
ical power player as a bundler for Hillary
Clinton and Barack Obama. And as the or-
chestrator of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art Costume Institute benefit, better known
as the Met Gala, she has transformed an af-
fair for Manhattan’s society set into a full-
blown East Coast Oscars, with luminaries
from fashion, music, movies and sports on
the Anna-controlled guest list.
As Ms. Wintour ascended, Vogue’s publi-
cation of “hurtful or intolerant” content
rarely resulted in lasting negative attention
for her. But Black journalists who have
worked with Ms. Wintour, speaking on the
condition of anonymity out of fear of retri-
bution, said they had not gotten over their
experiences at a magazine whose work-
place mirrored its exclusive pages.
Under Ms. Wintour, 18 people said, Vogue
welcomed a certain type of employee —
someone who is thin and white, typically
from a wealthy family and educated at elite
schools. Of the 18, 11 people said that, in
their view, Ms. Wintour should no longer be
in charge of Vogue and should give up her
post as Condé Nast’s editorial leader.
“Fashion is bitchy,” one former Black
staff member said. “It’s hard. This is the
way it’s supposed to be. But at Vogue, when
we’d evaluate a shoot or a look, we’d say
‘That’s Vogue,’ or, ‘That’s not Vogue,’ and
what that really meant was ‘thin, rich and
white.’ How do you work in that envi-
ronment?”
Many of the people interviewed for this
article said the racism they encountered
was usually subtle, but sometimes blunt.
Their main accusation was that Ms. Win-
tour created a work environment — and
there is no facet of Vogue that she does not
control — that sidelined and tokenized
women of color, especially Black women.
Many Black people who worked for her
said they felt so out of place in Ms. Wintour’s
domain that they created white alter egos
— two used the term “doppelgänger” — just
to get through the workday, reconditioning
their presentation and dress in a way that
was mentally draining.
Some Black editors did not want to com-
ment on the experience of fellow col-
leagues, but offered another view. Lindsay
Peoples Wagner, the editor of Teen Vogue
since 2018, said she had experienced un-
comfortable moments in the industry but
Ms. Wintour “has given me opportunities in
leadership, and I’ve made inclusivity a deep
part of the conversations we’re having.”
Three other people of color said Condé
Nast had made positive changes, and Ms.
Wintour has promoted them to top roles.
Naomi Campbell, one of the first Blacksupermodels, who was on the cover of Ms.
Wintour’s first September issue in 1989, ve-
hemently defended the editor.
“The first cover try I ever did, I had no
idea she had to fight for me,” Ms. Campbell
said. “She’s been a very important factor in
my career and my life and has been honest
about what she can do and what she can-
not.”
The recent tumult at Condé Nast has
knocked Ms. Wintour off balance. Inspired
by the protests that arose after the police
killing of George Floyd in May, employees
have confronted their bosses at company-
wide meetings and in smaller gatherings.
Their complaints have led to the resigna-
tions of key editors and pledges from the
chief executive, Roger Lynch, and Ms. Win-
tour herself, to revamp Condé Nast’s hiring
practices.
“I strongly believe that the most impor-
tant thing any of us can do in our work is to
provide opportunities for those who may
not have had access to them,” Ms. Wintour
said in an emailed statement. “Undoubt-
edly, I have made mistakes along the way,
and if any mistakes were made at Vogue un-
der my watch, they are mine to own and
remedy and I am committed to doing the
work.”
Devoting the September issue — the
most important of Vogue’s year — to Black
contributors indicates Ms. Wintour grasps
the intensity of the protest movement roil-
ing the country. But in fashion, of course, ap-
pearances are paramount. During a large
Condé Nast meeting on race in June, Ms.
Wintour — who is the head of the company’s
diversity and inclusion council — was con-
spicuously absent. Employees exchanged
Slack and text messages during the session,
asking the same question: “Where’s
Anna?”Cover Shots
Long before Condé Nast employees went
public with complaints about the company’s
handling of race, Ms. Wintour has been crit-
icized for Vogue’s portrayals of Black peo-
ple. For many readers, a 2008 cover of Le-
Bron James and Gisele Bündchen was rem-
iniscent of racist images of Black men from
a century ago. The basketball star is bellow-
ing and gripping the supermodel around
the waist, and some saw an unmistakable
parallel to a racist World War I propaganda
poster. Ms. Wintour also drew criticism
when she helped the fashion designer John
Galliano, who was fired from Christian Dior
in 2011 after he was caught on camera mak-
ing anti-Semitic remarks and declaring, “I
love Hitler.” She continued to support Mr.Galliano even after he was found guilty of a
hate crime by a Paris court.
Being indisputably the most important
magazine in fashion means Vogue comes in
for extra scrutiny — especially in its cover
selections. Last year, The Pudding, a pub-
lisher of visual essays, used algorithms to
analyze 19 years of the Vogue archives and
measure the average “lightness” of cover
models’ skin tones. In one span, from 2000
to 2005, only three of 81 women were Black.
In a statement, Condé Nast said that from
2017 to 2020, 32 percent of Vogue covers fea-
tured Black women.
Former Vogue employees said that in re-
cent years, Ms. Wintour has not kept pace
with the public’s changing attitudes on is-
sues of racism and discrimination. At a Lon-
don fashion week party hosted by Burberry
in February 2017, the reality TV star Kendall
Jenner showed up with a new look: fake
gold teeth. Vogue noted the choice in a
breezy online story written by a white con-
tributor: “The flashing teeth felt like a play-
ful wink to the city’s free-spirited aesthetic
— or perhaps a proverbial kiss to her ru-
mored boyfriend, A$AP Rocky.”
A Black staff member contacted one of
the magazine’s executives to object, saying
the story insensitively endorsed an in-
stance of cultural appropriation, according
to emails obtained by The New York Times.
Other staff members brought the article to
Ms. Wintour’s attention, with one lieutenant
explaining by email why some people on
staff and on social media had reacted nega-
tively: “If Kendall wants to do something
stupid fine but our writers (especially white
ones) don’t need to weigh in and glorify it or
ascribe reasons to it that read culturally in-
sensitive.”
Ms. Wintour appeared not to grasp the is-
sue. After several exchanges, she wrote:
“Well I honestly don’t think that’s a bigdeal.”
Condé Nast said in a statement: “The
coverage itself is not cultural appropria-
tion.”
Vogue’s content has, though, been ac-
cused of being exactly that. The March 2017
issue showcased Karlie Kloss, a white mod-
el, in a geisha outfit, with her face in pale
makeup and her hair dyed black — a blatant
form of yellowface. Readers condemned the
layout, which was shot in Japan by Mikael
Jansson and included a photograph of Ms.
Kloss with a sumo wrestler. New York Mag-
azine’s fashion site The Cut was among the
many critics, writing: “One thing’s for cer-
tain: Embracing diversity does not mean
styling Karlie Kloss as a geisha.”
A Condé Nast human resources execu-
tive in charge of the company’s diversity
program fielded numerous complaints, and
alerted Ms. Wintour. According to three
people with direct knowledge of the ex-
change, Ms. Wintour responded that she
took full responsibility, but added the fea-
ture could not have been cut because of its
“enormous expense.”
After an online outcry, Ms. Kloss issued
an apology on Twitter: “These images ap-
propriate a culture that is not my own and I
am truly sorry for participating in a shoot
that was not culturally sensitive.”
The tweet angered Ms. Wintour, accord-
ing to the three people, and Ms. Kloss sent a
note in an effort to mollify her. “I imagine
the feeling is mutual, that it was hurtful to
see the criticism from our Japan trip,” the
model wrote. “I had written a short piece on
social media as I wanted to make known
that it was never my intention to offend or
upset anyone from this spread.”
Ms. Wintour’s reply the following day
was icy: “Thanks Karlie another time
please give us a heads up if you are writing
about a Vogue issue.” (Ms. Kloss has contin-
ued to appear in the magazine’s pages.)
In the fall of 2017, there was yet another
awkward exchange on race between Ms.
Wintour and Vogue staff members. It con-
cerned a photo shoot by Patrick Demarche-
lier that showed several dark-skinned
Black models wearing head scarves.
As Ms. Wintour weighed whether to pub-
lish the images, she asked an employee by
email if they might be misconstrued as rac-
ist. But she flubbed the attempt, using a
dated, offensive term: “Don’t mean to use
an inappropriate word, but pica ninny came
to mind,” Ms. Wintour wrote.
In a statement, Ms. Wintour said: “I was
trying both to express my concern for how
our readers could have interpreted a photo
and raise the issue for discussion, and I
used a term that was offensive. And for that,Near right, Naomi Campbell on
the cover of the September
1989 issue of Vogue. Center
right, Anna Wintour, with
sunglasses and crossed arms,
in 2010, sitting with the tennis
player Serena Williams.
Bottom row, from left, Kendall
Jenner in a 2017 photo; a photo
from a 2017 shoot by Patrick
Demarchelier; and Karlie
Kloss, who appeared as a
geisha in a 2017 edition of the
magazine.
PATRICK DEMARCHELIERCONDÉ NASTBACKGRID‘We’d say
“That’s Vogue,”
or, “That’s not
Vogue,” and
what that really
meant was
“thin, rich and
white.”’
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1The
White
Issue
At Vogue
.