Anna Wintour opens up about #MeToo at Women in the World Summit 2019

Anna Wintour, one of the most powerful figures in fashion, was one of the speakers at the 10th annual Women in the World Summit, which concluded recently in New York.

The editor-in-chief sat down with Tina Brown, founder of Women in the World and revealed that she is not sure what she will wear at the Met Gala, which will come just three months after the death of fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld.

“There is no one, was no one, like Karl,” Wintour said. “He was just a completely exceptional person. He was a linguist. He was a historian. He was a designer. He was a decorator. He was a philanthropist. He was a humanitarian. He was witty. He was wicked. He was the best kind of friend to have. He was incredibly generous and incredibly kind. He was this larger-than-life figure that I think we all need to inspire the world.”

During her conversation with Brown, Wintour also spoke about being most inspired by New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who gained some notoriety for her response after the mass shooting attack on the two mosques last month. Wintour said she’s been “impressed” and “inspired” by the politician.

Talking about the #MeToo movement that started in Hollywood and eventually made its way toward the fashion industry [and the world], Wintour shared that it was shocking and disturbing at the same time.

“I think that we were as shocked and disturbed as so many industries were, and we moved very quickly to update our global code of conduct,” she said. “We interviewed hundreds of people that go on shoots or are involved with the company in many different ways. We revised our guidelines; we made it very clear that any kind of disrespectful or upsetting behaviour would in no way be tolerated. We put in place a hotline for anyone who wanted to call in things that were untoward, that were happening either in the office or on shoots.”

She further stated, “We made the very, very difficult decision to stop working with a number of photographers that were under investigation for sexual harassment. And these were photographers that were not only longtime collaborators, brilliant collaborators - and colleagues at Conde and throughout the world, and very important to the voice of many of our titles, but also personal friends. And that has been a very, very tough decision but absolutely no question that it was the right one to make.”

Apart from this, Wintour expressed her support to Weinstein’s now-estranged wife Georgina Chapman, after multiple women accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct. She even profiled her in Vogue, and wrote an editor’s letter about their friendship and how people shouldn’t hold Chapman responsible for Weinstein’s actions.

-With information from The Hollywood Reporter.