Working From Home like Anna Wintour
— by Alyson Walsh
The Grand Dame in go-faster stripes. Seems like Working From Home in the Hamptons is pretty much the same as elsewhere in the world. Except for the combination of laptop and sunglasses, in the study. Perhaps Anna Wintour could only find a 100 watt bulb for the table lamp. We are all having to make do… Anyhow. Little did I know when I posted my Working From Home outfit three weeks ago that Anna Wintour would be following suit; swapping her slingbacks for sweatpants. But, over the last decade posh joggers and side stripe trousers have slipped into the most fashionable wardrobes. And there’s nothing wrong with not-going-to-work in go-faster stripes.
Vogue editors from around the world are hosting a series of Zoom discussions on the future of the fashion industry (more details on whose zooming who HERE). And last week, American Vogue joined forces with the CFDA to set up A Common Thread, a fund-raising initiative to support American fashion designers.
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Discussion (45 Comments)
- LA CONTESSA says:
FOR THE PHOTO!
MOST LIKELY NO MAKE UP ON! I WOULD IMAGINE!
- Jax says:
It’s her brand and she’s still showing her brand to the outside world. 🙂
I started watching Amazon’s Making the Cut with Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum — I used to watch Project Runway in its first 4-5 seasons, so I don’t know if this is a new aspect just for Making the Cut or if it transitioned from Project Runway’s later seasons — they are now emphasizing the brand of the designer. Not just whether the designer is good and can head their design label, but whether they can project a sellable brand to the world.
- Anna K. says:
Somebody once surreptitiously tried on Anna W’s sunglasses and discovered they had very strong prescription lenses! A little forgiveable vanity – I too have such a pair!
- Martine Large says:
And the trouble with having prescription sunglasses is that you are so used to wearing glasses that you forget that you actually have your shades on, and so sit indoors wearing them for ages until somebody makes a comment.
- Joan says:
I’ve read she’s very sensitive to light so wears sunglasses much of the time.
- Sue Burpee says:
That’s why I’ve been feeling so slouchy in my sweatpants… no sun glasses. 🙂 Hope you are well, Alyson.
- Harriet Forde says:
Theresa, Monique, La Contessa, Jax and Alyson excellent banter on this one!
And IMO Alyson’s navy outfit looks way better balanced than the ‘Hamptons’ version!
- K says:
Good day to the Thats Not My Age Club.
I’m sighing here at this one. I think new fashion is going to be the last thing on so very many people’s minds. I think it’s now Make , Make Do, Mend etc. mentality. I think we older citizens who have had time on our side to build core wardrobes will be ok through this and can weather the reality of no budget for clothing , yet I do have concern about the younger generation who many will have less trend defying quality pieces in their closets and have gone the Fast Fashion route due to low costs. Will their clothes hold up? Time will tell and I’m sure it’s going to cause a seismic shift in the thinking about trendy vs timeless.
I do have to say that I for one am being bombarded with emails and catalogs for new Season sales from clothing companies – I want to unsubscribe from them all! I care not one bit about Summer releases.
Perhaps I am just melancholy, but for me, and I suspect many others , Fashion trends are the least important thing in the world right now. The Vogue designers – best of luck to them surviving this storm. I’d love a normalizing effect to come out of this. I don’t want to see the very wealthy or celebrities or teenage models in “designer “garb and I want the cheap horrible fast fashion peddled to the masses to just totally disappear . Can’t the clothing creators collectively just make great affordable basics. How hard is that?
Just venting.- Alyson Walsh says:
Vent away, K! True, we are all thinking about making do and what’s important right now. I am all about style over fast fashion and would always encourage readers to wear what’s in the wardrobe or practise considerate consumption. This was just meant to be a bit of fun – though obviously the future of the industry is deadly serious. It’s something that has been on my mind a lot over the past few weeks, and so I was interested in the Vogue initiative. While some fast fashion brands and their unethical practises will not be missed, fashion is a huge employer and people’s livelihoods are at risk.
And yes, more great affordable basics are what we need!
- K says:
Alyson , your clever humor shone through bright as the bulb in Anna’s lamp. She’s a character that’s for certain.
I think there will still be room for all of the talent in the clothing industry. I just hope to see it redirected to more realistic offerings.
- judith BRUINSMA says:
Thank you all for your fun and thought provoking comments, a joy to read!
Its Anna W and Vanessa Friedman (and you Alyson with the blog), who know precisely how to translate what fashion stands for, that let me “love” fashion with no reserve for time, place and moment.
At the moment fashion for me is still being able to express my creativity…
Judith, Amsterdam
- Catbird Farm says:
“I don’t want to see the very wealthy or celebrities or teenage models in “designer” garb and I want the cheap horrible fast fashion peddled to the masses to just totally disappear.”
This exactly, K. Yes yes yes. (Which is why I still read TNMA but nothing else from the world of “fashion.” And I have unsubscribed from all those marketing emails!)
- Patricia Regan says:
I totally agree. Let,s all get real and wake up.
- jackie says:
K,
I’m with you. I have plenty in my closet to sustain me. Also, I’ve started gifting some of my more “corporate” clothing to my 24 year old daughter … I don’t dress for work anymore. I’ve been teaching her to shop consignment for years so she loves second hand!Gotta love Anna, she doesn’t waver from her “brand”!
- Jaxx says:
I’m with you, I’d like it to disappear too. I’d like the whole low end of the industry to pivot to affordable clothes that can still be in fashion but without having to be thrown away after a few washes because it’s fallen apart. Changing the culture of issuing multiple new designs every week would help. Take away the supply that encourages people to over-buy. Hopefully lockdown is making people realise they don’t need it. If the industry giants collectively decided to move manufacturing back to the UK, wouldn’t their combined scale mean factories could open and it would become affordable for them to make clothes here, and to make better quality? Is this too simplistic? I don’t know, but we need radical thinking! A revival of UK manufacturing could create loads of jobs (help compensate for fewer jobs in store) and brands wouldn’t have to use overseas manufacturers with unethical working conditions who don’t pay fair wages. Retailers could offer instore repair services (maybe even retraining some sales staff as seamstresses). I hope lockdown is making people rethink their priorities when it comes to what they spend their money on, and I hope clothing brands’ need to survive will force them to have a radical rethink about their practices.
- Carolyn says:
We are all having to make do… hilarious. Thanks for the laugh this morning.
- Diane says:
For me, an affordable basic is anything that already matches my existing wardrobe. Over time, pastels have become my classic colors, because they’re cheerful and easy to find.
- Mrs Tonia says:
I read about the initiatives to raise money for designers led by Anna Wintour in a Vogue post.
As Alyson points out above there are many working in fashion broadly defined who are losing their jobs, in retail as well as in clothes manufacturing. This is reflected in other creative sectors. Earlier today I caught up with National Theatre At Home. A splendid production of Jane Eyre on their website. As they requested at the start please donate if possible. There are so many self-employed, freelance people among the actors, directors, technicians, wardrobe and set designers and constructors, directors, musicians and so on. This is similarly true in the film and television industries right now. Everything in the pipeline has been suspended and cancelled.
Whatever shape things are in once the reopening occurs will be a very different place. - Mrs Tonia says:
Thanks Alyson for the stripey tops and track trousers illustrated here.
Plenty of these perennials in the wardrobe to keep me and others going for many months. - John says:
Is that social distancing if you’ve had a Vogue photographer pop in to take a quick snap? Frankly, any laugh you can get in these times is a good one. And you have to hand it to her, she’s found a look that is working for her and is going to stick to it through pandemic or no pandemic.
- lizzie g says:
anna w seems to be managing the need to deal with roots and a haircut better than i am.
i’ve been working from home sitting at a laptop for a long time now, mostly in alternating pairs of slightly oversized 100% cotton corduroy trousers, comfy waist, breathable, washable, with good pockets for quick trips out and about. i figure they’ve been worn over 1000 days each and there are no bald patches or holes. they came from a high street shop. fast fashion isnt only where it comes from or what it costs, its what we do with the clothes when they are ours.- Alyson Walsh says:
That’s a good point Lizzie. If we buy clothes we know we’ll wear and look after them, they last longer. There are clothes from the high street in my wardrobe that I’ve had for years ( a pair of Gap jeans and a denim jacket I’ve had since the early 90s). And some designer brands have terrible practises, too – Burberry burning unsold items etc etc
- Philippa says:
I seem to be the only one on here that actually thought ‘Anna looks lovely in the photo – much more natural than she appears in the usual media pictures’ (and I’ve met her many times as I used to live with her brother). I didn’t find it annoying or inappropriate Alyson, I think it’s a very positive image and we must all have a stripey top and some leggings/jogging bottoms. No need to buy anything new to get this look.
- Alyson Walsh says:
I really like the more laid-back look, too, Philippa. It does feel more natural (though I do quite admire Anna’s ‘Power Uniform’). And it is a positive image for women of all ages to see, right now.
- lizzie g says:
i dont find it annoying at all either, i think anna looks great and her hair looks great. and i hope she is enjoying her tennis. i like that she’s wearing a sweater too. i live in an old house and working from home means staying warm. not turning the heating up and swanning around in linen, at least for april.
- maudie says:
The wearing of the shades? – noooo – too egocentric at this time imo!! Agree with everything said by these replies. Fashion/designer garb etc. seems so shallow at the moment and I too really hope that disposable, cheap and nasty ‘fashion’ disappears after The Duration, but I fear it won’t. We are fortunate to have a wardrobe of decent clothing but our youngsters do not. At their age I was dependent on Etam, Martin Ford and the Littlewoods catalogue for my latest ‘looks’ – many of them quite frightful! The truth is that our young people need cheap clothing to experiment and discover their own styles. What is coming out of this for me is that I still have far too many clothes and with no charity shops to take them into they stare at me accusingly every day. It is very easy for us to state that we have plenty of clothes but let us not forget the fun that we had in our heady, experimental youth. Kids are having a particularly tough time during this lockdown and I do feel for their generation. This reply is full of contradictions and I really don’t know the answer. However, I do know that Ms Wintour looks a bit daft in her indooor sunnies!
- Maggie Alderson says:
I am not loving that weird marbelised bureau in the adjoining room. As I scan every pixel of this photograph with an electron microscope… : )
- Alyson Walsh says:
I had a good look at the books on Anna’s shelves….
- T says:
Yes, I noticed the fab bookshelves! Can’t really make out the book titles (on this screen, anyway). Thanks, Alyson, for keeping us smiling and thinking…
- Julia says:
My immediate reaction was – this is the last person I want to read about on TNMA whilst we are self isolating, indeed at any time. However, the tone of the piece and comments cheered me up!
- Sara says:
So many comments, so much agreement:
1 Fun is just good at the moment.
2 Really agree with K
3 Also really agree with Alyson re workers in fashion losing jobs. Article in The Guardian today re the knock on effect of Arcadia group cancelling orders, a grim read.
4 Sunnies indoors?? Can still only see it as a tad daft, whoever she may be.
5 Books on shelves: I do spend a bit of time being frivolous when people are broadcasting from their homes, looking at decor and trying to decipher book titles……… Not my finest preoccupation but a guilty pleasure.
Please carry on Alyson, loved the last post too with so much info re art online, fab. - Charity gir. says:
Well I have the dvd of
‘The September issue’ and Anna is incredibly polite in a very very scary way. (total respect)But on the brighter side the fabulous Patrick Grant and the delightful Esme Young and the adorable Joe Lycett are back on next week with the Sewing Bee. They have even moved it to BBC1 instead of BBC2.
Happy days
- Sally says:
I rather like getting the catalogs of spring and summer clothes (even if the latter are too early) – Though I won’t buy loads of stuff, I like a pop or something new and have been trying, even with my basics in the closet, to take some interest in what I wear and keep color rolling every day. Also the catalogs are a small sign of normal life returning – even as I know this will take a long time. Often I use color as a defense, partly, to say, “I’m still here!” and also make it cheerful for my husband living with me. Spur myself on!
- Jean says:
I like the make, mend, and make do attitude. I have a pair of navy strait leg trousers that were a little too tight in the calf for me.
I opened up the outer leg seams and sewed in a length of 1 1/2 inch black grosgrain ribbon. This made the trousers fit me better and are totally on trend! - Christa says:
Anna’s sunglasses like Karl’s are essential to their icon status, eternal and ageless. Try the sunspecs thing it takes years off, no squinting weak eyes, no under eye bags, no wrinkles, no ageing brows definitely the way to go especially in photos. Its really only if she wears them to read in bed that there is a problem!
- Lilly says:
She keeps her style simple and athleisure inspired. Love the color of red and that dark shade. Her sunglasses are fabulous, but why to wear them during stay at home?
best,
Lilly from fashioncanons.com - noreen kelly says:
i read an interesting facebook post which charts what happens to the economy after a major event causing recession and invariably there is a consumer boom. i have a feeling people will react to being locked up by going mad when they get out… wanting to eat out and see friends more than normal and wanting to shop. of course we dont know yet when the recession will end. but there will eventually be a swing of the pendulum. on a connected note one of the positive traits for me in this pandemic has been people paying for less attention to, and often mocking, the fake lives and word salad statements of pompous celebrities. it would be lovely to think this cynicism will last but unfortunately i doubt it.
- Jax says:
That’s interesting — we had the Jazz Age party years after the Spanish flu of 1918. I think that was also driven by so many young people being killed by the flu or World War II — if you’re young and super aware of your mortality, you will want to PAR-TAY!! Because, who knows, what may come tomorrow.
Of course, the shiny/empty/superficial/consumerist Jazz (Gatsby) Age was followed by the Great Depression (and also the Prohibition in the U.S.). In some ways, people speculate we just had our Jazz Age (after the 2008 Recession) and now we may be heading in a dual hangover (from the 2010s economic bubble, personified by the huge fame of the Kardashians, and now the pandemic) great recession, even depression. The income inequality is off the charts right now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/arts/virus-celebrities.html
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
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How odd to wear the glasses in her own space…