Her novel about being Anna Wintour’s assistant caused such a storm, she wished she’d never written it. As the story becomes a musical with songs by Elton John, the author reveals why the imperious editor hasn’t spoken to her since
When Lauren Weisberger was 22 years old, she got the job that she would end up being famous for all her life. Having “literally never had a job beyond working in a frozen yoghurt place, with a bit of babysitting and lifeguarding”, but hoping to become a writer, she secured an interview to be assistant to Anna Wintour, then editor-in-chief of American Vogue. To the general horror of the Vogue office in New York, she arrived carrying her CV and writing samples in the sensible, dowdy leather briefcase her parents had given her as a graduation present. “I was fresh out of college – four years of studying and partying and wearing sweatpants all day long. I wasn’t into fashion, so Vogue was a completely foreign culture to me.” To everyone’s surprise, she got the nod.
The role was “demanding and fast-paced and stressful and head-spinningly around-the-clock. I would wake up every morning to voicemails left overnight, endless tasks that all needed to be done right away.” This was 1999 and “Anna didn’t have a computer. As her assistants, we were her computers. And everyone in the office was tall and gorgeous and slender and totally obsessed with this world in a way that felt toxic to me. Every minute in that office felt like an emergency. I was just a kid. I went into survival mode.”
