Anna Wintour

The most influential figure in fashion has no plans to give up her front-row spot.

- By Stephen Armstrong

Most people's image of Anna Wintour is in fact that of Meryl Streep - her portrayal of the brutal glossy magazine editor Miranda Priestly in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada made for a veritable meme machine.

Killer put-downs included: “Details of your incompetence do not interest me”; “Please bore someone else with your question”; “By all means move at a glacial pace - you know how that thrills me.”

But the real Anna Wintour - editor-in-chief of Vogue and chief content officer of Condé Nast - is a far more complex and surprising character.

Tomorrow Wintour will host the Met Gala, as she has done every year since 1995. This year's theme and guests make this the most aggressively anti-Maga event since Trump's inauguration. As the White House sinks its teeth into diversity, equity and inclusion, Wintour has built this year's Gala around “black dandyism”, inviting actor Colman Domingo, F1 driver Lewis Hamilton and singer Pharrell Williams to co-chair the event. Monica Miller, whose 2009 book Slaves to Fashion inspired the evening, called it “an incredibly political moment”.

The theme and accompanying exhibition were planned before the election, but Wintour was a crucial Democratic fundraiser. She helped pull in tens of millions of dollars in 2024, including a single evening in New York that collected $25m for Biden. This is not a Trump-friendly crowd - and it will be the biggest celebrity event of the year.

"Red carpet events in general are in decline," says Amy Odell, author of Anna: the Biography.

"People aren't watching the Oscars any more, but the Met Gala goes round the world. Everyone knows that if you walk that carpet, you're going to be exposed to people who could be important for your career or your bank balance. That's how she's got the price of seats up from $5,000 to $75,000, which is incredible and speaks to her business acumen."