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Review
""Front Row" is a fun book...To Oppenheimer's credit, the book charts a series of seismic shifts that Wintour-for good and ill-helped navigate: the shift from written to visual culture; the triumph of style over content; the transfer of power from the mature to the young....how Wintour, the single-minded diva, schemed and screamed her way to the top of the fashion-magazine world."
- "New York" magazine
"A fast-paced biographical romp... Mr. Oppenheimer uses "Front Row" to ladle out dish--just as he did in "Just Desserts", his 1997 biography of Martha Stewart. What he serves up is pretty juicy.... "Front Row" is an entertaining chronicle of Ms. Wintour's life...A study in power."
- "New York Observer"
"A fascinating read about one of the great queen-bee bosses and her mission to determine and define fashion."
- "Booklist"
"Gleefully vicious biography of a New York fashion icon....An in-depth look at Anna's 'bitch-eat-bitch' world."
- "Kirkus"
"Must read...gripping tales about one of fashion's most powerful players."
- "The Daily Telegraph"
"A blistering new biography. The most eagerly awaited unauthorized biography...Better than fiction."
- "New York Post"
"Oppenheimer combs his subject's past...dotting his pages with catty stories...fun dish"
- "Publishers Weekly"
"Whether you love fashion or dissections of the sort of cold-blooded creatures who inhabit it, Jerry Oppenheimer's "Front Row" is for you: an equally cold-blooded portrayal of the reigning queen of a world defined by frivolity...and abject fear."
- Michael Gross, author of "Model and Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren"
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- "New York" magazine
"A fast-paced biographical romp... Mr. Oppenheimer uses "Front Row" to ladle out dish--just as he did in "Just Desserts", his 1997 biography of Martha Stewart. What he serves up is pretty juicy.... "Front Row" is an entertaining chronicle of Ms. Wintour's life...A study in power."
- "New York Observer"
"A fascinating read about one of the great queen-bee bosses and her mission to determine and define fashion."
- "Booklist"
"Gleefully vicious biography of a New York fashion icon....An in-depth look at Anna's 'bitch-eat-bitch' world."
- "Kirkus"
"Must read...gripping tales about one of fashion's most powerful players."
- "The Daily Telegraph"
"A blistering new biography. The most eagerly awaited unauthorized biography...Better than fiction."
- "New York Post"
"Oppenheimer combs his subject's past...dotting his pages with catty stories...fun dish"
- "Publishers Weekly"
"Whether you love fashion or dissections of the sort of cold-blooded creatures who inhabit it, Jerry Oppenheimer's "Front Row" is for you: an equally cold-blooded portrayal of the reigning queen of a world defined by frivolity...and abject fear."
- Michael Gross, author of "Model and Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren"
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
She's ambitious. She's a perfectionist. She's insecure and needy. But most of all she's extremely successful. She's Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, the most powerful arbiter of fashion and style in the world. This is the inside story of the public and private worlds of the enigmatic icon often hidden behind dark sunglasses and under the fringe of a Louise Brooks bob, a style she's been wearing since she was a teenager obsessed with fashion in "Swinging Sixties" London. A dropout at 16 from a tiny private school, Anna Wintour grew up in a home dominated by a powerful and icy British newspaper editor father and a cold and critical American heiress mother who had a scandalous marriage. Anna Wintour has been called many things over the years: "Nuclear Wintour" by her fearful subordinates at British Vogue, "cold, suspicious and autocratic, a vision of skinniness" by Grace Mirabella, the editor-in-chief whose job she grabbed at American Vogue, and "The Devil" in a recent bestselling roman a clef, written by Wintour's assistant. In her mid-fifties, nearing her second remarkable decade at the helm of Vogue, her story is part Cinderella, part Horatio Alger: an ambitious fashionista arrives here - from London in the mid 70s and fights her way to the top of the bitchy and very competitive fashion magazine world, artfully rafting and reinventing herself along the way. Front Row is also the scrupulously researched story of this ingular woman's personal passions and needs, of her loves lost and won, of her battles and feuds, and of her incredible achievements.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
Born on November 3, 1949, Anna was a healthy tot with a mop of straight, shiny dark brown hair and intelligent, dreamy grayish-green eyes set in a beautiful, tiny oval face. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Born on November 3, 1949, Anna was a healthy tot with a mop of straight, shiny dark brown hair and intelligent, dreamy grayish-green eyes set in a beautiful, tiny oval face. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Anna Wintour is one of those people that it's almost absurdly easy to hate... especially if you've worked under her. "Front Row: Anna Wintour" opens with a description of the poor girls who show up bare-legged in freezing temperatures, all to cater to the fashion diva's whims. It gives a taste of what is to come.
Anna Wintour was born the daughter of high-ranking British parents, one a social do-gooder and the other a major newspaper editor. She followed in neither parent's footsteps -- from her early schooldays, it became obvious that Anna cared first and foremost about fashion, shortening her gym skirts and defying strict dress codes (which led to expulsion from high school).
As a teen, she was a minor club goddess. Then with her father's credentials as a calling card, Anna started delving into the world of fashion writing, including brief stints at magazines like Harper's Bazaar, the ill-fated Viva, and Home and Gardens, which she singlehandedly destroyed. Finally "nuclear Wintour" got her dream job: editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine.
Jerry Oppenheimer isn't exactly the ideal biographer, having written some truly awful biographies of Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Martha Stewart. However, he does a passable job with "Front Row," by coolly and calmly exposing the many flaws of Vogue's editor-in-chief, including how she incited rebellion and destroyed at least one magazine with her celebrity-obsessed revamps.
He also does an excellent job of deflating Wintour's imposing image, by revealing the times she was found sobbing, played "little girl," or acted in a manner that could have gotten her sued. For example, we find out that she pettily fired people for not being young and attractive enough, and scuppered a bestselling author's essay because he wasn't good looking. Juicy juicy.
Unfortunately, Oppenheimer's writing is not up to the challenge. At best, his writing is dry and distant, with the odd embarrassing moment (such as a lame erection joke early in the book). He also gives detailed exposes of Wintour's assorted paramours, but her kids get almost no coverage at all. He seems more interested in the "fashion wars."
Her icy attitude and ruthlessness have made her a legend in fashion circles, but "the devil who wears Prada" loses some of her sting after this book has been read.
Anna Wintour was born the daughter of high-ranking British parents, one a social do-gooder and the other a major newspaper editor. She followed in neither parent's footsteps -- from her early schooldays, it became obvious that Anna cared first and foremost about fashion, shortening her gym skirts and defying strict dress codes (which led to expulsion from high school).
As a teen, she was a minor club goddess. Then with her father's credentials as a calling card, Anna started delving into the world of fashion writing, including brief stints at magazines like Harper's Bazaar, the ill-fated Viva, and Home and Gardens, which she singlehandedly destroyed. Finally "nuclear Wintour" got her dream job: editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine.
Jerry Oppenheimer isn't exactly the ideal biographer, having written some truly awful biographies of Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Martha Stewart. However, he does a passable job with "Front Row," by coolly and calmly exposing the many flaws of Vogue's editor-in-chief, including how she incited rebellion and destroyed at least one magazine with her celebrity-obsessed revamps.
He also does an excellent job of deflating Wintour's imposing image, by revealing the times she was found sobbing, played "little girl," or acted in a manner that could have gotten her sued. For example, we find out that she pettily fired people for not being young and attractive enough, and scuppered a bestselling author's essay because he wasn't good looking. Juicy juicy.
Unfortunately, Oppenheimer's writing is not up to the challenge. At best, his writing is dry and distant, with the odd embarrassing moment (such as a lame erection joke early in the book). He also gives detailed exposes of Wintour's assorted paramours, but her kids get almost no coverage at all. He seems more interested in the "fashion wars."
Her icy attitude and ruthlessness have made her a legend in fashion circles, but "the devil who wears Prada" loses some of her sting after this book has been read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Excellent!
Not the most intellectual and knowledge-ehancing biography you will read but its well written and a definite page-turner. I look forward to reading more of Oppenheimer's biographies. Now whenever I lay my hands on a scented, glossy new Vogue I think about the blood, sweat and tears that went into it.
STRONGLY recommended!
Not the most intellectual and knowledge-ehancing biography you will read but its well written and a definite page-turner. I look forward to reading more of Oppenheimer's biographies. Now whenever I lay my hands on a scented, glossy new Vogue I think about the blood, sweat and tears that went into it.
STRONGLY recommended!
16 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
OPPENHEIMER, AN AMERICAN BIOGRAPHER, HAS WRITTEN A SCRUPULOUSLY RESEARCHED PAGE-TURNER ABOUT OUR ANNA WINTOUR. I WAS AT BRITISH VOGUE WHEN SHE CAME ABOARD IN THE '80S AND SHE REALLY WAS NUCLEAR WINTOUR. THE AUTHOR HAS ALL THE FACTS. HE ALSO PAINTS A FASCINATING PORTRAIT OF ANNA'S SWINGING '60S LIFE IN LONDON. A TRULY REMARKABLE, ENTERTAINING READ.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Simply a must-read for people who love fashion sincerely
Some people out there think Anna Wintour is demanding, icy, aloof and career-obsessing.
And some of the others see nothing but the glamour and flash-lights surrounding... Read more
And some of the others see nothing but the glamour and flash-lights surrounding... Read more
Published 1 month ago by kase
Fascinating!
A book with great insight into Anna Wintour. Interesting on all fronts - personal, career history, friends opinions of this woman of fashion. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2010 by D. M. Croxford
A must read
This book was really interesting to read.....I learned many new things about Anna Wintour, and in parts it was very humourours! Read more
Published on 26 Jan 2006 by Jackie Onassis
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