Vogue’s Wintour taps successor to lead editorial at the iconic magazine

Chloe Malle replaces Anna Wintour as Vogue’s new director of editorial content after nearly four decades in the role.

On Tuesday, the 134-year-old magazine made the announcement.

Wintour, age 75, serves as Conde Nast’s chief content officer and is its global editorial director for American Vogue and its 27 editions worldwide. She will continue to lead Conde Nast, the iconic brand’s parent company, which also owns storied brands like Vanity Fair and GQ, as well as oversee major events like the Met Gala.

While taking over day-to-day operations at the US edition, Vogue.com editor Malle may be stepping into Wintour’s low-heeled slingbacks. The storied “editor-in-chief” title, which Wintour held for almost 40 years, is no longer in use.

Malle, 39, has been with Vogue for more than ten years, most recently as the podcast host of The Run-Through and editor of Vogue.com.

She started out as social editor at Vogue in 2011 as the daughter of actress Candice Bergen and director Louis Malle, and she has been there since 2023. She has also worked as a contributing editor at Vogue. She has oversaw numerous well-known projects, including an interview with Lauren Sanchez, the then-fiancee of Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos, and one of former US President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden’s prewedding shoot.

The announcement that Malle has accepted the position comes as New York Fashion Week’s most recent round of shows, which will begin the following week, and the Venice Film Festival, which will feature a new documentary about her father. Her appointment is immediately effective.

In the statement announcing Malle’s appointment, Wintour said, “Chloe has consistently shown that she can find the balance between American Vogue’s long, singular history and its future on the front lines of the new.”

According to the statement from her new job, Malle’s direct traffic to Vogue.com doubled, and the site experienced double-digit growth across all key metrics. 14.5 million unique visitors are currently being received each month.

Risk-taker

Since 1988, Wintour has transformed the US Vogue brand into a cultural spectacle with an international following at the Met Gala.

Wintour, who is almost a clone of the Vogue label, is also widely regarded as an inspiration for “Miranda Priestly,” the fashion editor who Meryl Streep plays in the film The Devil Wears Prada.

134 years ago, Vogue was established as a society journal. With models on the cover, static close-ups captured in studios, and a focus on high fashion and heavy makeup, it became a traditional industry staple in 1909 after Conde Nast bought it.