Front Row: Anna Wintour: What Lies Beneath the Chic Exterior of Vogue's Editor in Chief

by Jerry Oppenheimer

Overview

She's ambitious, driven, insecure, needy, a perfectionist—and she's considered the most powerful force in the more than $100 billion fashion industry. She's Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue, the world's fashion bible. With her signature Louise Brooks bob, trademark sunglasses, and glamorous furs, she's a sexy international diva, gossiped about the world over. As famed designed Oscar de la Renta declares, "She's a star."

How did Wintour, who quit school over the length of her hemline, and who had no real writing or communication skills, rise to the pinnacle of the fashion magazine world? Based on scores of interviews with present and former friends and colleagues, Front Row is the scrupulously researched, often shocking life story of this enigmatic icon—a candid portrait of a fashion-obsessed teenager in Swinging Sixties London who claws her way up the ivory tower in New York. It is also an intimate examination of Wintour's personal passions and needs, her loves lost and won, and her feuds and achievements. Anna Wintour's story is an inside look at one of the world's most influential women as well as the catty, competitive bitch-eat-bitch world of fashion. Meow!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312323110
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/07/2006
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

JERRY OPPENHEIMER is the New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty, as well as unauthorized biographies of Hillary and Bill Clinton, Anna Wintour, Rock Hudson, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters, Ethel Kennedy, Jerry Seinfeld, and the Hilton family. He has also worked in several different capacities as a journalist, including as an investigative reporter and a producer of television news programs and documentaries.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	xi
	Prologue	xv
1	Family Roots	1
2	A Teenage Bond	12
3	Swinging London	19
4	A Growing Independence	28
5	London Party Girl	36
6	Shopgirl Dropout	42
7	Finding Love at Harrods	51
8	Live-in Model	56
9	Making the Masthead	63
10	Family Affairs	76
11	Creative Energy	80
12	Meeting Mr. Wrong	84
13	Playing Hardball	94
14	Axed American Style	100
15	A Curious Betrayal	111
16	An Embarrassing Position	116
17	Complex Persona	132
18	Out in the Cold	139
19	The Chanel Affair	151
20	A Savvy Decision	158
21	New York by Storm	173
22	A Territorial Grab	181
23	Mister Big	191
24	In Vogue	203
25	Golden Handcuffs	211
26	Marriage Made in Heaven	220
27	Baby Makes Three	229
28	Anna's Guillotine	236
29	Lover, Friend, Mother	247
30	Beginning of the End	257
31	The Parking Lot	265
32	July Fourth Massacre	274
33	Anna and the Boss	282
34	Madonna, Di, and Tina	289
35	The Assistant	297
36	Fashion Battlefield	303
37	The Party's Over	314
38	An Affair to Remember	329
39	A New Life	345
	Selected Bibliography	361
	Author's Note on Sources	363
	Index	365

Editorial Reviews

Gleefully vicious biography of a New York fashion icon.” —Kirkus

“The revealing unauthorized biography unveils the Anna Wintour even those closest to her don't know….If you liked The Devil Wears Prada, get your gossip fill with Front Row…we couldn't put it down.” —Complete Woman

“Better than fiction.” —New York Post

“For inquiring minds, it's a juicy, tabloidesque read.” —Houston Chronicle

“A fast-paced biographical romp... Mr. Oppenheimer uses Front Row to ladle out dish—just as he did in Just Desserts, his 1997 biography of Martha Stewart. What he serves up is pretty juicy.” —New York Observer

“Filled with gossip and scandals and peppered with celebrity names and tales…[A] fascinating read about one of the great queen-bee bosses and her mission to determine and define fashion.” —Booklist

“Schadenfreude enthusiasts will enjoy Oppenheimer's latest, Front Row, which offers Anna Wintour in extreme close-up.” —Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher

Already skewered in the 2003 novel The Devil Wears Prada, Wintour now gets a marginally more factual treatment in this latest unauthorized bio from celebrity trasher Oppenheimer (who's profiled Martha Stewart, the Clintons, Jerry Seinfeld, Barbara Walters and others). As in his previous works, Oppenheimer combs his subject's past, interviewing old school pals, ex-boyfriends, distant relatives, professional enemies, former colleagues and anyone else in possession of an ounce of dirt. Wintour has a reputation for being one of the nastiest women in both the fashion world and the realm of magazine publishing, a standing Oppenheimer bends over backward to bolster, dotting his pages with catty stories about her "calculated," "offensive" maliciousness (she'd buy clothes that were too small for her high school girlfriend, just so the girl would feel fat; later, at New York magazine in the early 1980s, she stole story ideas from colleagues). Although Oppenheimer clearly feels Wintour's notoriety is deserved, he does recognize her achievements: putting a model in jeans on the cover of Vogue, for example, when no one had dreamed of mixing denim with couture. If readers can ignore Oppenheimer's often over-the-top style ("The Wintour of British Vogue's discontent was about to begin"), they'll find some fun dish here. Photos. Agents, Dan Strone and Robert Gottlieb. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A biographer to the stars (e.g., Barbara Walters, Martha Stewart, the Clintons) takes on "Nuclear Wintour." Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Gleefully vicious biography of a New York fashion icon. She edits the fashion world's bible but couldn't stay faithful to her husband. That's Oppenheimer's take on Wintour's life: five decades of ruthlessness leading inexorably to huge professional success and crashing personal failures. Oppenheimer (The Other Mrs. Kennedy, 1994, etc.) starts with Wintour's family, Wintour's adolescent rebellion, her parents' divorce, her many boyfriends, and her failure ever to graduate from college. At early jobs, she was miles ahead of the other girls in terms of ambition and style, as well as of cruelty (she was dubbed "bacon slicer" for her sharp tongue); more than one coworker also recalls that she couldn't write copy for her fashion spreads, a handicap she apparently never overcame. Oppenheimer gives equal time to her jobs and her men, here chronicling affairs and there pointing out, delightedly, that Anna spent two years at Bob Guccione's Viva magazine in the '70s. The story winds up in the present, presenting Anna at American Vogue (she'd been at British Vogue earlier), twisting S.I. Newhouse around her little finger. Her innovative styling is well documented, as is her slash-and-burn technique of assimilating magazine staff (her once-trusted, recently sabotaged personal assistant was happy to discuss specifics with the author). In fact, the number of sources willing to be interviewed and quoted by name is the best indication of Wintour's ability to command loyalty. There are details and revelations galore; unfortunately, the author's completist tendencies-recounting the number of buttons on Anna's high-school gym uniform, for example-bloat what could be a much more streamlined hatchet job. Allthe minutiae can't hide the fact that since Wintour herself declined to participate, her interior life remains unknown. Those looking for fashion-world dish won't quibble, since Oppenheimer otherwise offers such an in-depth look at Anna's "bitch-eat-bitch world."Agent: Dan Strone/Trident Media Group

Kirkus Reviews