The biggest job in fashion has finally been filled.
Following news that Anna Wintour was stepping back as editor of American Vogue in July, Condé Nast have appointed 39-year-old journalist and Vogue staffer Chloe Malle as head of editorial content at the American fashion magazine. Her role is effective immediately.
“Fashion and media are both evolving at breakneck speed, and I am so thrilled, and awed, to be part of that,” said Malle in a statement. “I also feel incredibly fortunate to still have Anna just down the hall as my mentor.”
One of the most powerful roles in the fashion industry, her appointment marks not just a new chapter for the magazine but for Wintour herself, who will stay on in her role as chief content officer for Condé Nast and global editorial director for the magazine, allowing her to retain control of the magazine, while no longer being involved in the day to day. Wintour was present at the July couture shows and it’s likely that both she and Malle will be present for next week’s New York fashion week, oversee the Met Gala and Vogue World events. But in a first for the most famous magazine in the world, Vogue no longer has an editor-in-chief.
“At a moment of change both within fashion and outside it, Vogue must continue to be both the standard-bearer and the boundary-pushing leader,” said Wintour. “Chloe has proven often that she can find the balance between American Vogue’s long, singular history and its future on the front lines of the new. I am so excited to continue working with her, as her mentor but also as her student, while she leads us and our audiences where we’ve never been before.”
Malle was editor of Vogue.com and co-host of the podcast The Run-Through with Vogue, and is a longtime Wintour insider, having been at the magazine since 2011. Responsible for editor-led newsletters, and successful annual “witty” tentpoles such as Dogue (a dog fashion magazine), she is more of a broad stroke journalist than a fashion insider. In 2014, she told Into the Gloss that she was “hesitant when I was interviewing, because fashion is not one of my main interests in life, and I wanted to be a writer more than an editor, but I was so seduced by the Vogue machine that I couldn’t resist”.
Still, a frontrunner since Wintour’s announcement, Malle’s appointment will come as no surprise to anyone tracking Condé Nast’s revolving door. The former editor-in-chief is known for rewarding close deputies with international roles – Mark Guiducci, Wintour’s Vogue’s creative editorial director, was recently helicoptered into the top job at Vanity Fair.
The gig was arguably up once Malle covered the high stakes and much-discussed Jeff Bezos-Lauren Sanchez wedding in Venice earlier this year. Given access to the bride before the ceremony and tasked with gathering additional details in the run-up to the wedding, the cover story followed her 2023 interview with the couple, and both are seen as proof of her mettle when juggling high profile celebrities with consumer interest.
A graduate of Brown University, Malle grew up in Los Angeles and began her career writing about property for the New York Observer. She has since written for the New York Times, Marie Claire, the Wall Street Journal and Architectural Digest. She joined Vogue in the features department 15 years ago, and has worked across various sections and platforms at the title.
Malle is also the daughter of American actor Candice Bergen, known for her wry humour and icy Nordic characters both on and off the stage, and the late film director Louis Malle, who lived in France because he “didn’t like living or working in Hollywood”, according to a 2015 interview with Bergen in Dallas News. In another curious play between life and art, Bergen had a long-running cameo as the lovelorn editor of US Vogue in Sex and the City. Malle is also one of the few names to have had her birth reported on by People magazine.
It’s been almost two months since Condé Nast first advertised the job on LinkedIn, but that hasn’t stopped the list of possible successors to jumping from pillar to post. According to insiders, Wintour told interview candidates that she was after a journalist who was able to oversee live content while travelling and mentoring regional editors abroad.
Among the names mooted for the plum role by William Hill bookies were the Duchess of Sussex, Kim Kardashian and Victoria Beckham. More sensible names included Malle’s British counterpart, Chioma Nnadi, the Financial Times’s HTSI editor, Jo Ellison, and – in a plot ripped straight from The Devil Wears Prada – even a man. Will Welch, the 45-year-old editor of GQ, who is credited with turning the men’s magazine from a general interest man’s publication into one focused on fashion and style, was in the top 10 favourites.
While Wintour’s team have been in pains to confirm that is she not stepping back, rather up, speculation surrounding her retirement have been a hot topic at a time of intense upheaval for the industry, which is grappling with declining sales. Wintour has kept a steady monthly circulation of over 1m over the last decade, while overseeing a global “digital-first” strategy that has seen content shared between global editions. It’s thought the mass restructuring sparked internal upset over the loss of editorial autonomy between each magazine.
Malle is well-liked both inside and outside the industry, and in hiring from within the company, Wintour will still be able to shape the magazine she will one day leave behind when she does finally exit the company. Condé Nast have insisted that nothing is really going to change. But for the most prominent glossy magazine on the shelf, Malle’s hire and Wintour’s move marks an end to a very particular era for glossy magazines.
