I am not a sentimental person. I don’t shed tears over outdated layouts or the slow death of print. But even the coldest fashion heart flinches—just slightly—at the sentence: “Eva Chen could replace Anna Wintour as the head of American Vogue.” It’s the kind of phrase that makes a martini tremble in a Baccarat glass. One doesn’t simply “replace” Anna Wintour. That’s like announcing that next year’s Met Gala will be held via Zoom or that Chanel No. 5 will now come in a refillable TikTok-branded atomizer. Times may be changing, but there are sacred institutions where selfie sticks do not belong.
Anna Wintour isn’t just the editor-in-chief. She is Vogue. A sovereign. A silhouette. A whisper in the hallway that silences entire design houses. Her bob is more recognizable than some designer logos. She governed fashion not with a smile, but with silence. She didn’t ask questions — she raised eyebrows. And now, on the periphery of this glossy empire, stands Eva Chen. Smiling, friendly, perfectly likable. A former magazine editor, yes. But more recently: Instagram darling. Meta’s Head of Fashion Partnerships. Fluent in emojis and sponsored content. The woman who took front rows and made them vertical — literally — for Stories.
Let’s be clear: Eva Chen is not incompetent. On the contrary, she’s brilliantly positioned at the intersection of fashion, tech, and influence. She’s been on both sides of the camera and both sides of the boardroom. She understands the algorithm, the audience, the aesthetic. She’s built trust in a way traditional media forgot how to. But that’s exactly the point. Since when did Vogue concern itself with being “relatable”? Vogue didn’t strive to be accessible — it existed to be admired, feared, and, at best, worshipped from afar. Chen is too warm. Too… approachable. She posts her children’s lunchboxes. Anna Wintour wouldn’t even post her own shadow.
And yet, here we are. Chen’s name keeps surfacing in very real conversations about the future leadership of Vogue. According to fashion insider Lauren Sherman (via Puck), there are precisely three women in the world currently considered viable successors to Wintour. Chen is among them — and no longer as a punchline or a “what if”. She’s a real contender. In the boardrooms of Condé Nast, it seems, Instagram isn’t a guilty pleasure anymore — it’s a strategy.
The irony is rich. Vogue, for decades the voice of selective elitism, now flirts with democratized influence. For years it looked down upon the very digital culture it must now embrace to survive. Perhaps Chen represents not a dilution, but a mutation — Vogue 2.0. A magazine no longer produced for the few, but consumed by the many. Stylish, yes. Authoritative? That’s up for debate. But certainly… sharable.
Still, we must ask: if the next editor-in-chief of American Vogue speaks in Reels and replies in DMs, what happens to the mythos? Will the September issue become a carousel? Will the coverlines be optimized for SEO? Will every feature end with “link in bio”? Will fashion criticism be replaced with product links?
To be fair, maybe this is precisely what Vogue needs. Fresh air. A human face. Someone who doesn’t just know fashion’s past, but is actively shaping its digital future. But part of me — the one dressed in archival Celine, sipping espresso in glassware too thin for clumsy hands — mourns the idea. Vogue was never supposed to be friendly. It wasn’t supposed to smile back. It was a monolith, not a meme.
And so, when people ask me if Eva Chen should replace Anna Wintour, I respond with a pause long enough to feel dramatic, but not long enough to be indecisive: perhaps… but only if Vogue no longer intends to be a temple, and instead becomes a boutique app with swipe-up capability.
Fashion changes. That’s its job. But reverence? That used to be ours.
Photo courtesy of Harper‘s Bazaar
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