Fashion, which often seems to be on a path to be bigger, more Instagram-ready, can also achieve its best through sincerity.
Interpretation
Fashion thrives on authenticity rather than just over-the-top appearances.
In this quote, Anna Wintour emphasizes that while the fashion industry often strives for grandiosity and showiness, it can achieve true excellence when it is grounded in sincerity and authenticity. This highlights a deeper value in creativity and connection over mere visual spectacle, suggesting that the essence of fashion should be genuine rather than solely focused on trends or social media appeal.
In practice
In a speech about creativity at a design conference.
It would be ridiculous to ignore the speed and possibilities of the digital landscape - you absolutely need to have fast-moving news online, but if you want to build a large audience over time, you absolutely have to take a risk on the big challenging stuff.
With all the new media outlets out there, with all the noise, a voice of authority and calm like Vogue becomes more important than ever. The more eyes on fashion, the more opinions about fashion, the more exploration of fashion around the world, the better it is for Vogue. Vogue is like Nike or Coca-Cola—this huge global brand. I want to enhance it, I want to protect it, and I want it to be part of the conversation.
'Vogue' and 'Vice' may appear to some to see the world through different lenses. But in my view, both are fearless and breathtaking, with unquenchable curiosity and vigor.
Fashion is not beautiful, neither is it ugly. Why should it be either? Fashion is fashion.
I think what I often see is that people are frightened about fashion. Because it scares them or makes them feel insecure, so they just put it down. On the whole people that may say the mean things about our world I think that’s usually because they feel, in some ways, excluded or, you know, not a part of ‘the cool group’ so as a result they just mock it.
I think we're living, in terms of media, in a very democratic age, but I think that we still look at everything through the lens of 'Vogue' and through our own point of view.
Flaubert called himself a human pen; I would say that I am a human ear. When I walk down the street and catch words, phrases, and exclamations, I always think - how many novels disappear without a trace! Disappear into darkness.
Before I was ever a poet, my father was writing poems about me, so it was a turning of the tables when I became a poet and started answering, speaking back to his poems in ways that I had not before.
The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.
People say that I could sing the phone book and make it sound good.
A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.
I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff - being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you won't get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens.
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