WHY SHE WON’T EVER TAKE OFF THOSE SUNGLASSES
SUNGLASSES ARE A ‘MUST’
SHE usually opts for Chanel and is never seen on the front row without them. ‘They are seriously useful,’ she once said. ‘If I am bored out of my mind, nobody will notice. At this point they have become, really, armour.’
But could there be another reason that she wears them? According to biographer Jerry Oppenheimer, they’re prescription glasses.
ARMS TONED BY TENNIS
SHE rises at 5am and within 45 minutes is being driven in a Mercedes to the Midtown Tennis Club for an hour on court.
‘She’ s like a retriever,’ said one of her coaches. ‘She’s so fast. She’ll chase down everything.’
NO DRESSING, NO ALCOHOL
WHIPPET-thin and 5ft 5in, Wintour is thought to be a dress size 0 (a British size 4). Breakfast, by 8am, is a Starbucks coffee on her way to Vogue’s HQ at One World Trade Centre in New York. (She used to eat smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, but no more it seems.)
Wintour favours a high-protein diet and never drinks alcohol. Lunch, usually eaten at her desk with her mobile turned off, is either a rare hamburger without the bun or a fillet steak with green salad but no dressing.
She loves avocado, hates broccoli and coffee ice cream is an occasional treat. Those who’ve dined with her report she sits at the table in fur and sunglasses and doesn’t eat.
THAT HELMET OF HAIR
AFTER tennis, Wintour returns home to have her hair professionally blow-dried each morning. She’s said to have a hairdresser on permanent call.
Incredibly, she’s had the same hairstyle — a harsh pageboy bob — since she was 14. All that’s changed is the colour. Photos from the late Eighties show a chestnut brunette which gradually lightens to today’s near-blonde.
Every four weeks, she flies into the UK for a trim by £200-a-time stylist Max Coles at Nicky Clarke’s Mayfair salon.
‘We always stick to a very sharp and sleek finish with some slight variation on the length according to the season,’ he says. The look is enhanced by a volumising shampoo, a thickening spray and plenty of hairspray.
MINIMAL MAKE-UP
LESS is more — a good base, dark shadow on the eyelids, mascara, a touch of blusher and peachy lipstick or gloss.
Although blessed with good bone structure, rumours still abound that several years ago she had a facelift by New York cosmetic doctor-to-the-stars Sherrell Aston, who charges £18,000. Anna is also said to be a fan of cold laser facials at the Freeze Clinic in New York to tighten facial muscles.
QUEEN OF FASHION
HER wardrobe is colour-coded with garments hanging precisely one inch apart. With an alleged £150,000 clothing allowance each year (on top of her £1.5 million salary as Conde Nast’s editorial director), her closet must make the famed fashion cupboard at Vogue look like Primark.
But she’s not one for fleeting trends. Her signature silhouette is a dress with a nipped-in waist, a knee-length or longer hemline, a conservative neckline — and often sleeveless to show off those toned arms. She hasn’t been spotted in trousers for over a decade.
Her other love is colour. Her minions know not to show her anything in black, no matter the designer. She once said the one thing you’d never see her in was ‘top-totoe black’.
But she’s not afraid to wear the same look several times. ‘It’s always fun to have something new, but it doesn’t mean that everything you already have in your closet has to be thrown out,’ she says. ‘ Recycle. It’s totally OK.’
SAME SLINGBACK SHOES
EQUALLY striking for a woman at the helm of the fickle world of fashion, Wintour has been wearing the same shoes since 1994, when the then little- known Manolo Blahnik designed her a pair of sandals known simply as the ‘AW’.
The cross-fronted slingbacks have a kitten heel and come in a variety of shades — all beige — to complement her skin tone. Blahnik has a last the exact shape of her foot so every pair fits perfectly — but the design can be unforgiving. Wintour has been pictured with what look suspiciously like bunions peeping from the strappy sandals.
CHUNKY ACCESSORIES
WHILE jewellery designers would fall over themselves to lend her their most precious pieces, the fashion matriarch is rarely seen in fine gems. Instead, she wears huge strings of different-coloured chunky stones and crystals. Even a royal heirloom she once wore to a gala, an amethyst necklace that had belonged to King George V’s wife Mary, wasn’t a string of delicate gems but rather a regal version of her usual hefty favourites.