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I have spent recent days in the company of some strong, silent types. Not in real life, you understand, which has been filled with the usual cacophony. But the qualities of stoicism, reserve and silent service are much discussed in two books that have just been published. The first, The Palace Papers, by former magazine editor and writer Tina Brown, sweeps through 20 years of tumult within the house of Windsor to offer a verdict on the royal house’s health; the other, a biography of Condé Nast’s reigning editrix, Anna Wintour, by Amy Odell, tries to understand the making of one of the most powerful women in modern media, who, it transpires, is as stubbornly inscrutable behind her trademark sunglasses as any queen.
“The mystery of royalty was preserved by the maxim ‘Never complain, never explain’,” writes Brown in an early chapter before going on to explain, over more than 400 pages, just what makes the Windsors tick. The big takeaway is that Queen Elizabeth II rarely shows candour, avoids emotional confrontation, especially within her family, and has a sense of duty which is expressed via an absolute sacrifice of self.
“The Queen opts in public to show very little emotion at all,” writes Brown, who spent two years interviewing dozens of royal acquaintances, former employees, politicians and current servants of the household to produce a gripping portrait of the Windsors’ rather bourgeois and banal domestic life. “We are never tired, and we all love hospitals,” observed Queen Mary, the Queen’s grandmother, of the royal agenda, which is governed by a waspish retinue of royal servants who seem mainly interested in the accretion of their own influence.
Everyone has much to say about the Queen, but as one of history’s longest-serving monarchs, few knock her commitment to the job. Her family has been mired in successive scandals, but she has steadfastly stuck around. “Her epic stoicism has come to signify the endurance of the nation,” writes Brown. “The power of a royal silence is the monarchy’s ultimate mystique.”
Wintour has adopted a similar strategy in her ascension. Odell’s book, a grand but ultimately glancing study of the Vogue editor, makes frequent reference to Wintour’s implacable demeanour, her quiet professionalism and the fact that no-one can really figure her out. Like the Queen, Wintour had a powerful father (Charles Wintour, editor of London’s Evening Standard newspaper), and like the Queen, she was not academically bright. Like the Queen, she was born into privilege. And like the Queen, she has always used silence to solidify her grip on power. “She didn’t want to be part of a group that existed,” recalls a school friend of the teenage Wintour, before the sunglasses, but already bobbed. “She wanted to be in her own rarefied air . . . that’s part of the mystique.”
Ah, the feminine mystique. The power of saying naught. I find it slightly depressing to think that two of the world’s most famous women remain alluring only because they keep schtum. Perhaps it’s symptomatic of our British weakness for cold governess-y women who can chide us into bettering ourselves. The Queen seems to live in some state of frugal ecstasy, denying herself any pleasure or personal expression except when communicating with a horse. Wintour’s seismic silences are said to stem from shyness, although as Odell writes, she has as often employed it to seduce and/or intimidate.
Anyway — it all sounds so controlled and boring. I couldn’t possibly be the Queen. Such a gruelling existence of cutting ribbons, looking neutral and being careful would cause me an irreparable speech impairment from having to bite my tongue. Neither, if Odell’s book is anything to go by, do I much fancy being Wintour, who must be exhausted by so much withering and managing all those emissaries to communicate her will.
Such frosty exclusivism is appalling when considering the politics of the modern workplace, but recent years have seen the glacial Wintour begin to thaw. Odell’s book makes much of the humanising moment following Donald Trump’s election, when Wintour summoned everyone to the office early the morning after, made a speech and then broke down in tears.
FTWeekend Festival: US edition
Jo Ellison is in conversation with Tina Brown and Simon Schama at the inaugural edition of the FTWeekend Festival on May 7. The one-day event, ‘The Bigger Picture: a global take on the ideas stimulating, diverting — and unsettling — our age’, features leading authors, scientists, politicians and of course FT writers. Limited passes available at ftweekendfestival.com
And this week, in the full glare of the Odell publication, she reigned over her annual ball. A fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, the Met Gala — which Wintour has presided over since the 1990s — has so elevated her standing, the first Monday in May is now known by some as “Anna Wintour Day”. In Odell’s telling, its administration seems a gruesome power-play of celebrity demands, micromanagement and passive aggression over which Wintour controls everything from frocks to flowers. It is the fullest expression of her sovereignty, but while her control at Condé Nast has deepened and intensified since her accession in 1988, some would argue the empire over which she holds dominion has grown smaller and less impactful with each subsequent decade.
Like the Queen, Wintour has cycled through an era of extraordinary change and tumult. And like the Queen, she grins and bears it: Wintour’s not going anywhere. On Monday night, she offered a rare smile to the photographers and switched out her sunglasses for a tiara. And, in keeping with her stoic nature, said a customary nothing at all.
Email Jo at jo.ellison@ft.com
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