Anna Wintour leaving Vogue?

 

Wow - we were a little bit floored by this newsbit being passed around by Gawker via Media Bistro yesterday.  On December 2nd they wrote:

"The Waverly Inn was crawling with Condé Nast insiders earlier tonight, some of whom had been waiting as long as 20 years for the appetizer: The hot, delicious rumor that Si Newhouse was meeting in Paris with Carine Roitfeld to work out the final details of the French Vogue editor's move to New York, where she is expected to take over flagship Vogue from Anna Wintour immediately after New Year's. It did not go unnoticed when Condé Nast overlord Newhouse departed early for his annual three-week December vacation in Vienna; it turns out he needed time for his meeting with uptight Wintour's chic Parisian counterpart.

Corporate colleagues also arched their eyebrows when Wintour told a reporter at the National Magazine Awards to "Just go away" after she asked about rumorsof the editor-in-chief's impending retirement. The touchy reply added to their suspicion that Wintour, who just this past June celebrated two decades atop Vogue, was worried about being pushed out by Newhouse before she'd lined up a soft landing elsewhere. Her purported $2-million-per-year salary is seen as a hindrance, given the state of the economy, in lining up a follow-on fashion gig of the sort that seems natural, post Vogue: creative director at LVMH, that sort of thing."

I for one will be dismayed if Anna goes, she's done a really lovely job with Vogue.  I would also not be thrilled to see a European editor at the helm of an iconic American magazine with all that's going on in our country right now, no matter how talented ~ I think it sends the wrong message.  We hope Si Newhouse (pictured above with Anna Wintour in 1990 - dig Anna's shoulder pads and the pre-whitener smile) thinks this through quite thoroughly before another American institution is trashed.   (note: yes we know Anna was born in the UK, however I believe she's also an American citizen having worked in the US for several decades.  We do not intend offense to the entire British population with this comment).