She's stepping down from Vogue but Anna Wintour isn't going out of style

The doyenne of fashion journalism is handing over the US magazine's reins at 75, but her new role should add to her power at Condé Nast

- Vanessa Thorpe

The fashion crowd were gathered in Paris for the menswear week catwalk shows when they learned the news: Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of US Vogue, is quitting the role she has held for 37 years.

The departure of the doyenne of doyennes had leaked out to the fashion news site Women's Wear Daily while staff in Vogue's Manhattan offices were still being told, hitting social media before a planned press release. Word rippled through designers' shows, dotted between Le Marais and Place des Vosges, as commentators on insider websites such as Outlander responded with shock. "This is bigger than Warren Buffett stepping down," said one. "That was a long cold Wintour," quipped another.

Many heard as they were entering the Palais Galliera after Rick Owens' show. The music playing inside, it was drily noted, was Klaus Nomi's version of Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead from The Wizard of Oz.

Speculation quickly centred on whether Wintour, 75, was being managed out by publishers Condé Nast, or whether she will now, in effect, wield even more power over the international fashion business, released from her editing duties to oversee the global range of titles and branded events. She remains chief content officer, controlling titles including GQ, Wired and Tatler. "If she's really leaving, she should go completely," commented one fashion aficionado.

But Hetty Mahlich, the editor of the fashion website SHOWstudio, argues that it is welcome news in an industry which often resists change. "American Vogue will benefit from a new creative eye, without losing Anna's expert over-arching direction," she told The Observer. "She has a track record for putting the right people together in the right places, but it's being intentionally done so that there won't be another Anna Wintour figure, as we know it.