Legendary Fashion Editor Anna Wintour Magazine Vanity Fair

Dominicus is Anna Wintour'due south 70th birthday and she plainly only wants one thing: "She's hoping for a lot more grandkids," said a colleague of the legendary Faddy editor.

"Y'all would have idea Anna might have cut back her hours after becoming a grandmother," added the colleague of Wintour, who is granny to Caroline, 2, and 9-calendar month-old Ella, the daughters of Wintour'due south son Charlie Shaffer, 34, and his wife, Lizzy. "But she hasn't. She still doing it all."

Indeed, Wintour shows no signs of inching toward retirement. In addition to running Vogue and shepherding Condé's entire stable as the global content adviser, she stars in myriad videos on Vogue.com and YouTube, oversees the annual Met Gala — which benefits the Anna Wintour Costume Establish at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — and just led a 12-function serial for MasterClass, the online learning academy, called #HowToBeABoss. She's been the style design consultant for the Tony Awards over the past five years and the native Londoner was named a Dame by Queen Elizabeth in 2017.

"She's not only crumbling gracefully," said one Vogue author who requested anonymity. "She'southward crumbling fashionably. She'southward changing the whole game of who can clothing what at what age."

"Anna knows how epic this [altogether] is," said the colleague, who has known Wintour for many years. "But she'southward never played by the rules so why would she get-go now? Just like she's reinvented everything else, she's reinventing 70."

Last week, New York Mag published a scathing account of Condé Nast's decline, revealing losses of $120 million in 2017. This yr alone, the company has sold Golf Digest, Westward and Brides, afterward shuttering the print versions of Glamour, Cocky and Teen Vogue in recent years.

While rumors of Wintour's retirement have swirled in Manhattan's power circles for the past few years, i well-placed source believes the icon is cardinal should the Newhouse family that owns Condé Nast ever decide to sell the company.

"They're dependent on Anna'southward glam prototype," said the source.

(A Condé Nast spokesperson referred The Post to this quote: "Condé Nast has not been, is not, and will non be for sale," Steven Newhouse told New York Mag.)

But some feel that Wintour, who backside her signature sunglasses has long been known as the most enigmatic and unknowable woman in style, is spreading herself too sparse. The New York Magazine story described her hosting a breakfast in her office for fifty women on the "Vogue100" — a group that appears to be a prestigious award list, but is actually a membership program with access to sectional events and parties, costing $100,000.

She'due south never played past the rules then why would she get-go now? Just like she's reinvented everything else, she's reinventing 70.
- A Vogue writer

"I have a jewelry-designer friend who got an invite [to exist in the Vogue100]," said one former Condé editor who at present works at Hearst. "She was so flattered until she realized she was being asked to pay a hundred thousand dollars for the right to get 15 minutes with Anna."

Wintour has besides taken estrus for supporting the hiring of sometime New York Times Book Review editor Radhika Jones to exist the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair after longtime editor Graydon Carter resigned. Under Jones, the magazine has been the subject of much criticism. Every bit New York Magazine reported, "The critiques of Jones' Vanity Fair came hard and fast: She'd sucked the glamour and mischief out of information technology and replaced it with bland, earnest celebrity virtue signaling. The mag's stories rarely seem to break through the noise."

"I'thou convinced she'due south trying to kill Vanity Fair! Because as Vanity Fair declines, Vogue looks better," said a Vanity Fair source. "She's Machiavellian."

"That could not be further from the truth, Anna has been a champion of Radhika from day one," said a Condé Nast spokesperson.

A second Vanity Fair source calls Wintour's oversight a conflict of interest.

"They need to divide her out as the editor of Vogue and the [US] artistic director of Condé Nast," said the 2d Vanity Off-white source. "It's a total conflict to have both those jobs. She's made a disaster of every other [Condé] magazine — they all look just like Vogue."

Nevertheless, said i Wintour source, "Anna is surrounded past sycophants."

As for her birthday, said the media colleague, "Anna'due south very large on her friends' and family's birthdays but she's never been large on her own. She'll [probable] celebrate with a small group at a restaurant or at a small dinner in her townhouse on Sullivan Street."

Among her close circle of friends are Anne McNally, the Vanity Fair author and ex-wife of former Indochine and Odeon restaurateur Brian McNally; socialite landscape designer Miranda Brooks; and artist Hugo Guinness. The media colleague predicts Wintour will besides probable gloat with her children, their spouses and her granddaughters at her 62-acre weekend home in Mastic Beach, LI.

"Anna is very family-oriented. Her family are the merely people she trusts," said the media colleague.

Wintour's daughter, Bee Shaffer, 32, works for the Ambassador Theatre Group, which owns, amongst other backdrop, Broadway's Lyric and Hudson theatres. Bee married Francesco Carrozzini, son of the late Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani, concluding year. Charlie Shaffer, Wintour'due south son, is a medico. Both are the production of Wintour's 1984-1999 marriage to child psychiatrist Dr. David Shaffer.

1 person who won't likely be at any party: Shelby Bryan, Wintour'south longtime paramour whom she met in 1999 while both were married to other people.

"When the affair went public, she was embarrassed — but it only added to her allure," said one former Vogue employee. "They had a very combustible connexion."

Only in 2013, it was revealed Bryan owed the IRS some $1.ii million in back taxes.

"That was the start of the end," said the Wintour source. "He started to become a liability. Information technology'due south been quite a while since they've been seen together."

There have been rumors that the editor is involved with British actor Bill Nighy — "kind of a Shelby look-alike," said the Wintour source — with the 2 spotted together at plays in New York and London.

In her MasterClass, Wintour — who has had a version of the same bob haircut since she was a teenager — reveals the cloak-and-dagger of her success: discipline. She rises at iv a.m., plays an hour of tennis at 5:45, then gets her hair and makeup washed before going to work at Condé'due south Ane World Trade Centre headquarters. Her breakfast consists of "Starbucks," she said, while lunch is a hamburger with no bun. By 5 p.m., afterward a meeting-crammed twenty-four hours, she's heading home to her Sullivan Street townhouse with what she calls her "magic box of tricks": layouts, photos and sample pages from Conde's various magazines. Her social life consists of work events or pocket-sized dinners, and she's in bed every night past 10 p.yard.

While some people were shocked she would drop her icy veil to do the MasterClass, the former Vogue employee thinks it was just time. "I think Anna figured she was the subject field of so much gossip, a motion picture ["The Devil Wears Prada"] and 2 documentaries ["The September Effect" and "First Mon in May"], she might besides utilize it to her and Condé's reward. At this bespeak, she's almost bigger than the make."

That said, according to her longtime colleague, Wintour still has her eyes on a political ambassadorship.

"She needs a graceful leave strategy. Her adjacent move has to accept the appearance of fifty-fifty more cachet," the colleague said. "Merely given that her current [presidential] candidate of pick is [long shot] Pete Buttigieg, she may not have a friend in the next White Business firm."

Co-ordinate to a Vogue spokesperson, "Anna has not called a candidate."

Merely it could be difficult to give upwardly her visibility, said a one-time Condé editor.

"Anna could get six board seats — at Estée Lauder, at Apple — and make half a million a year for a few meetings. Merely then she'd be disconnected. Her access would be cut off. The invites would terminate coming and the phone would finish ringing. She couldn't handle that."

On November. 17, Wintour is getting one of her meridian honors yet: She volition be one of the honorees of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery American Portrait Gala, alongside the likes of Jeff Bezos and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Her friends say that, despite being one of the most famous women in style, Wintour is still misunderstood.

"She gives everyone around her a seat at the table. And she's incredibly charming when she needs to be," said the Wintour source. "She can exist a existent flirt."

A fellow member of Wintour'due south inner circle seconded that.

"People don't understand Anna, which is fine, she doesn't need them to. But she is actually shy, kind, loyal, a great friend, fiercely intelligent and cultured beyond belief," said the inner-circle source. "I go on telling her the best affair she could do now is write a volume. Many books. And then she'd accept 'bestselling writer' to add to her listing of accomplishments."