My career got off to a very shaky start when I omitted out of school at the age of 18. Despite my lack of academic credentials, I got a job as a look assistant at Harper’s & Queen. I now know that this would not in a million years have happened in the States, as one of the big differences between American and British journalism is the assumption of qualifications. For one to get a job as a secretary at American Vogue, for example, Conde Nast’s personnel responsibility demands some dazzling degree. High school drop-outs, even Steven ones who show promise, don’t stand much of a chance.

I’m much asked why I left London for New York in the late seventies, and the reckon is because five years of being asked over and in again if I was the daughter of Charles Wintour (editor of the London Ordering Standard, 1959-80) was more than enough. In the innumerable years I’ve now spent in New York not a single person has ever implored me who my father is, or was, or what he does.

My first job in the States was as a junior mania editor at Harper’s Bazaar, which I enjoyed but not for all that dream of because I was fired by the editor in chief, who told me that I was too ‘European’. At the age I didn’t know what he meant, but in retrospect I think it carried that I was obstinate, that I wouldn’t take direction and that I utterly ignored my editor’s need for credits. In his eyes I was neither commercial, nor masterly. The shoot that finally drove him over the edge was when I photographed the Paris stores on girls with Rastafarian dreadlocks — a concept that should have been ahead of its time.

Thinking about that chapter in my exuberance, what I find most interesting is to realise how little fads have changed: talented, but totally self-absorbed, young English gals now come to see me with some regularity, and with some harmony they tend, not unlike myself way back, to have an not quite total disregard for readers. With a bit of regret, I also realise that I from moved closer to the position of the editor who fired me. Although I influence not have fired me, I certainly would have given myself a stony-hearted lecture — on how readers prefer seeing healthy, energetic, beaming girls over sick, sad and strange ones. And I might also possess reminded myself of the fact that if you don’t acknowledge your armoury’s advertisers you won’t have a magazine.

After a series of jobs that I advance not to recall, I was hired in the early eighties as fashion editor of New York ammunition. It was a time in New York when artists, fashion designers and internal decorators were in fierce competition with each other for renown status, and Ed Kosner, then the editor in chief, allowed me to abuse advantage of that to break away from the usual catalogue way of fashion journalism. To no one’s surprise, the decorators and artists were thrilled to be photographed next to gorgeous girls, and the approach seemed to go down genially.

For one issue, I asked some ‘of the moment’ eighties artists — Francesco Clemente, David Salle, Jean-Michel Basquiat — to clarify the New York collections. That story caught the eye of Alexander Liberman, then the all-mighty column director of Conde Nast, who offered me the position of creative Mr Big at American Vogue. In fact, I’d already been to American Latest thing once before but nothing came of it — the reason being that when the rewriter in chief at the time asked me what job I really wanted, I bruit about, in a sudden fit of candour, ‘Yours’.

In 1986, I returned to London as editor-in-chief in chief of British Vogue. Although I still thought of myself as utterly English, to my surprise everyone here thought I was some systemize of American control freak. Journalists portrayed me as a wicked skirt of steel — I always wore black and fired everyone in field of view. Actually, I am always depressed by the sight of black-clad fashion lady of the presses descending like nuns on the collections, and I remember letting solely two or three people go. But, no doubt fearing my awful reputation, a company left of their own accords. It was about this time the British horde began referring to me as ‘Nuclear Wintour’ and the ‘Wintour of our Discontent’.

Perhaps the cold reception I received in London was not entirely my fault. After all, refunding Bea Miller wasn’t easy. Everyone loved her. Plus, there was a cozy but mildly far-out atmosphere at British Vogue, which, after my time in New York, cross out me as out of date. It also seemed out of step with the fast arising social and political changes that were thundering totally Britain in the eighties, under Margaret Thatcher. I felt the cozy technique was not responsive to intelligent women’s changing lives. So I decided to infuse the publication with a bit of American worldliness, even toughness.

Naturally, I met with a bit of partisans. On the other hand, during my time at British Vogue I realised that there were and are an enormous numbers of good things about the British approach. The British attitude editor — and I am talking about the girl who goes out on the shoot — is exceedingly independent. She chooses the clothes herself, she has a big say in selecting the photographer, and she spends a lot of often planning the location and the details of the shoot. By contrast, the approach in New York is unmistakably industrialised. Staffs are enormous and editors — each with a importantly specific job — abound. I was astonished when I learned that American Dernier cri had a bra editor.

In the States, the opportunity for a creative or personal approach is to some degree limited. There are just too many cooks in the kitchen. This moderately corporate manner of fashion editing isn’t due to any lack of creativity on the division of American editors. Rather, it’s dictated by the enormous size of the American make available. Plus, the stakes are higher — American Vogue’s circulation is 1.2 million.

When I rotated back to the States to edit Vogue I took the British make advances with me because it seemed that what was needed was some arrange of combination of the two. For example, I gave the individual fashion editors various responsibility than they’d been used to. I encouraged them to engage their own stories and to develop their individual styles. But because of the unparalleled support system, the New York editors could work at a much faster rate than their London counterparts. The English fashion journalist — at least when I was there — would comb the market, work both photographer and models, and plan the shoot with the anyhow exquisite detail seen in London stage design. At outdo, these editors could only muster up one story an question major. In short, the English did everything except press the button on the camera — and I understand they often do that as well. By contrast, in New York the collector can usually do one shoot a week — sometimes more.

There are fabulous differences not only between the journalists but between the magazines. The most beneficent British magazines are conceived in a fit of editorial passion. Their gestation years is short, their need for sustenance is modest and in no time a British periodical can move from editorial idea to the news-stand. By contrast the scheme of an American magazine is more likely an act of artificial insemination — a organize of businessmen with their eye firmly fixed on the bottom set up see a ‘revenue opportunity’ and after many meetings finally ‘green-light it’. Then founds months of market and design research.

A vivid example of the dissimilitude between British and American magazines are the launches of new ones. Nonplused & Confused was founded five years ago by three art students. With no patrons, and no personal money, these entrepreneurs managed to launch their fantasy by getting one company to sponsor their first three broadcasts. After grabbing the industry’s attention with their empirical take on fashion, they now hit news-stands with a respectable company of ads. Rankin Waddell, 29, the only founding member Heraldry sinister, is often described as a ‘control freak’. Lord help him if he chew outs in black. In contrast, a new American magazine that was launched hold out year spent $40 million, had a large staff for a concerned year of research and careful marketing plans before manifesting on the news-stand.

The same Atlantic divide separates American and British style. While a handful of high-profile British designers now have magnificent jobs at enormous French fashion cartels, you might about that Alexander McQueen created his first collection for $4,000. By differentiate, Victor Alfaro, a young, talented Mexican designer who live outs and works in New York, recently abandoned his business because he couldn’t get back the necessary $25 million!

In summary, the British fashion paragraphist often sees herself as an artist or a craftsman. Her work is identical hands-on, she cares a lot about originality and less about readers or advertisers, and she is respected for this by her boss — who doesn’t pay her sufficient. Within limits she is left alone to get on with the job, which she can normally count on keeping for a very long time.

The New York editorial writer, on the other hand, has many more resources to call on. She spurs in a tightly co-ordinated and organised system which leaves less breadth for her individuality. She is acutely aware of her readership and the magazine’s advertisers, and she is handsomely refunded. On the other hand, she does not enjoy the same job security.

How sway I account for the Tina Brown/Anna
Wintour /Liz Tilberis/Glenda Bailey rarity? Well, it is not only British women who have succeeded at American armouries. The phenomenon also includes Andrew Sullivan at the New Republic, Note Buford at the New Yorker and David Yelland at the New York Post. The incident that the British have been so successful in the States as collectors of such a wide range of publications surely demonstrates that our suit doesn’t lie in any sort of cultural mystique. Contrary to what some cynics drink said, it’s not the accent. If the sensibilities of New York and London were not so strikingly almost identical, we foreigners could never have succeeded.

I believe that peddle considerations on each side of the Atlantic have led to different procedures, which, when taken alone, are in different ways equally tarnished but when they meet it’s a marriage made in heaven. I be suffering with been tremendously lucky to work at a magazine like American Mode, which is not only editorially driven but also commercially winning. I have also been tremendously lucky to have had the episode of working in Britain before turning up in New York.

This is an bleeped version of a speech given by Anna Wintour last week at the Dames In Journalism meeting in London.