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.
The simplicity of photography lies in the fact that it is very easy to make a picture. The staggering complexity of it lies in the fact that a thousand other pictures of the same subject would have been equally easy.
I mean, the sound of an amplified guitar in a room full of people was so hypnotic and addictive to me, that I could cross any kind of border to get on there.
A lot of photographers walk around looking for something 'out there,' but I'm very much interested in what's 'in here.'
One must do the same subject over again ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must resemble an accident, not even movement.
Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it.
Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.
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