30 Most Inspiring Facts You Probably Never Knew About Anna Wintour

14 February 2019, 5:04 pm EST By Ruby Karnick

Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue since the year 1988 as well as the artistic director for Condé Nast, Vogue's publisher, since the year 2013. She has been a very important figure in fashion world, with her trademark pageboy bob haircut and dark sunglasses. Here are some interesting facts about the British-American journalist and editor:

She has earned a nickname "Nuclear Wintour," with her aloof and demanding personality.
The 2006 film starring Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, a fashion editor, titled "The Devil Wears Prada," based on the 2003 bestselling roman à clef of the same name written by a former personal assistant, Lauren Weisberger, is believed to be based on Wintour.
She was also reportedly the focus of another film by R. J. Cutler "The September Issue," a 2009 documentary.
Dame Anna Wintour DBE was born on November 3, 1949 in Hampstead, London to Charles Wintour and Eleanor "Nonie" Trego Baker.
Her father was the editor of the Evening Standard, local daily newspaper in tabloid format in London. Her mother, an American, was the daughter of a Harvard law professor.
Her parents married in the year 1940, but got divorced in the year 1979. Audrey Slaughter, a magazine editor and the founder of Honey and Petticoat publications is her stepmother.
Her granduncle is Sir Augustus Vere Foster, the last Baronet of that name, while her great-great-great-grandmother was the late-18th-century novelist Lady Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of Devonshire.
She was named after Anna Baker (née Gilkyson), her maternal grandmother, who was a merchant's daughter from Pennsylvania.
She is one of the four children to Charles Wintour and Eleanor. Gerald, her elder brother, died as a child in a traffic accident. Patrick, her younger brother, is a journalist, currently diplomatic editor of The Guardian.
Two of her siblings - James and Nora, worked in London local government and for international non-governmental organizations, respectively.

Wintour was educated at the independent North London Collegiate School. At her time there, she frequently rebelled against the dress code by taking up the hemlines of her skirts.
It is reported that her father used to regularly consult her while considering ideas for increasing readership in the youth market for his newspaper "Evening Standard."
She began dating at the age of 15 and was briefly involved with Piers Paul Read, then 24. She dated well-connected older men. She dated gossip columnist Nigel Dempster in her later teens. The duo became a fixture on the London club circuit.
She developed an interest in fashion and started wearing her hair in a bob. She was a regular viewer of Cathy McGowan on Ready Steady Go!, and from the issues of Seventeen that was sent to her, by her grandmother from the United States.
Her first job was arranged for her by her father at the influential Biba boutique, at the age of 15.
Her first experience of magazine production was given to her by another one of her older boyfriends, Richard Neville, at his popular and controversial OZ.
When she was only 16 years old, she left North London Collegiate and began a training program at Harrods, a department store located in Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London.
She was one of the first editorial assistants of Harper's & Queen, following the Harper's Bazaar UK's merger with the Queen's, beginning her career in fashion journalism.
During her tenure at Harper's & Queen, she discovered model Annabel Hodin, a former North London classmate.
She left her job at Harper's & Queen, following some disagreements with her rival, Min Hogg, and moved with her boyfriend Jon Bradshaw, a freelance journalist to New York.

In the year 1975, she became a junior fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar in New York City, but was fired by Tony Mazzola after just nine months, due to her innovative shoots.
It was reported that she disappeared with Bob Marley for nearly a week, after one of her boyfriend Bradshaw's friends, introduced her to the singer. However, she said she had never met the legend, in a 2017 appearance on "The Late Late Show with James Corden," and that if she had met, she would have hooked up certainly.
She got her first position as a fashion editor, at Viva, a women's adult magazine, with the help of her boyfriend Bradshaw. This was her first job, where she was able to hire a personal assistant, which led to the start of her reputation as a demanding and difficult boss.
In January 2014, the Metropolitan Museum of Art named its Costume Institute complex after Wintour, which was opened by First Lady Michelle Obama in May the same year.
The American Society of Magazine Editors elected Wintour to its Hall of Fame in the year 2010.
In the early 1980s, she went for an interview with Vogue editor Grace Mirabella, arranged by a former colleague that ended with Wintour telling Mirabella that she wants her job.
She met editorial director for Condé Nast, Alex Liberman, the publisher of Vogue, who offered her a position at Vogue in the year 1983, which she accepted after a bidding war that doubled her salary. With this, she became the magazine's first creative director, a position with vaguely defined responsibilities.
She was named as the 39th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in the year 2014.
She took over the UK edition of Vogue after Beatrix Miller retired in the year 1985, where she attained her first editorship.
In the early 1980s, she started dating child psychiatrist David Shaffer, who was an older acquaintance from London. The duo got married in the year 1984 and have two children Charles and Katherine. The couple divorced in 1999, with various newspapers claiming the reason to be her affair with investor Shelby Bryan. However, she refused to comment.