Vogue's Anna Wintour: High School Dropout & Fat-Shamer

By Dodai Stewart | May 18, 2009 | 3:00pm

On 60 Minutes last night, Morley Safer used the word “bitch” repeatedly while interviewing Vogue‘s Anna Wintour. He also gleefully insulted the fashion industry, saying:

“To an outsider, these [fashion] shows are another planet. Part dazzling, part Rocky Horror Show. Models who seem as angry as they are emaciated, wearing clothes fit for a cadaver.” Dude, we get it. You don’t like fashion. Insinuating that Karl Lagerfeld is Dracula shows real journalistic integrity. It was also annoying when Safer went on about Wintour being well-groomed; do you really expect the high-profile editor of a fashion magazine be anything less? But back to Anna Wintour:

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She came off as a shrewd businesswoman who knows her stuff, makes no apologies and never backs down from what she believes in. She loves clothes, fashion, style and glamour, and doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that. On the one hand, you have to admire her steely resolve; there’s no waffling, and her strength and commitment to her vision is what makes her a respected editor. On the other hand, that rigidity paired with a narrow view of what “beauty” is means that she’s completely unapologetic about things like Photoshop and fur.

As seen in this outtake, Ms. Wintour gushes, “I love fur! Fur is very much part of the fashion industry.” When it comes to the raccoons and paint thrown at her she says, “I simply ignore it.” It’s quite clear that she does not give a shit if lower life forms have to die, and she will never ever ever feel bad about that.

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In addition, it’s clear that Ms. Wintour really dislikes “fat” people. She wants everyone to be slim, which is why she told Oprah to lose weight to be on the cover of Vogue. In this outtake, she claims she gave Oprah the “gentle suggestion” to drop some pounds. “I suggested that… she lose a little bit of weight… I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trouper! She totally welcomed the idea and she went on a very stringent diet and it was one of our most successful covers ever.”

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In this video, Ms. Wintour is explaining a picture of an obese woman. She says, “I’d just been on a trip to Minnesota, where I can only kindly describe most of the people I saw as little houses.” She uses her hands to show just how wide these fatties were. She goes on about the epidemic of obesity in the United States and basically whines that everyone is always picking on the anorexics, when we really need to be teaching people how to “eat and exercise.”

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In another outtake, Wintour defends Photoshop, saying she uses it to make people “look their best.” She says, “That’s one of the things that makes me rather angry, that I don’t understand — that if you look wonderful, does that make you less important? Less powerful? Less serious?” Well, no… but Vogue creates images which are lies, pictures which have been essentially proven to make women feel bad about themselves. Is that for the best?
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While her 60 Minutes interview was illuminating, and certainly reinforced Ms. Wintour’s persona as a brusque, extremely serious and intimidating figure (though not cold; she is passionate, about fashion — did anyone catch when she called the price of a $1200 dress “reasonable”?) there were several questions Morley Safer neglected to ask. Such as: Why were there zero models of color in the magazine, issue after issue, for the last couple of years? Why do you think your magazine sales numbers are down? And how come you don’t produce more fashion shoots which lend themselves to LOLVogue?

More Anna Wintour Clips And Outtakes [CBS News]
Related: Women Of All Sizes Feel Badly About Their Bodies After Seeing Models [Science Daily]
Earlier: 5 Possible Reasons Why Women’s Magazine Sales Are Plummeting