FINALLY, after having taken over 2 years to read the book, I can write my brief review about Jerry Oppenheimer's "Front Row"!
Let me first tell you why I wanted to read this book so badly at first, and then took two years to finish it:
1. I am the #1 Fan of Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of the American VOGUE magazine.
2. I am the kind of person, who does not see her for the "icy" person she is often described to be, but I admire her iciness and success in the fashion industry, and her, just doing whatever she thinks is right.
3. I am the kind of person, who screams "ANNA, I LOVE YOU!!", when she walks past me at fashion week (and this is what I actually really did after the Chanel show...).
What I thought I would read about, when I wished for this book:
I thought
- I'd get an insight on how Anna Wintour achieved to be the editor in chief of the American VOGUE
- I'd see all the hard work she had to put into her career
- I'd read about the struggles she had to set her foot in the publishing industry and how she overcame them
What I REALLY read about, once I had the book in my hands:
To summarize the reason for her success:
It is not (only) hard work, but her father -who himself was a big chief editor in London- helped her a lot along the way, and stemming from a wealthy family certainly didn't hurt and might have made things easier for her.
Networking was also not a problem, for her dad had a lot of connections, and people who have money often have some kind of influence somewhere. Since Anna's family was quite wealthy, she was automatically moving in the "high society". Thus, there is no big achievement from her in the sense of her trying to get into the world of glamour, for she was already born into it.
Of course her character helped her a lot to stay in there and to get to know other people who could help her along the way, but most people first have to get their foot in there, before they can make things happen.
She had different men in her life which was pretty interesting to read about, and a lot of them were "bad boys". However, she ended up marrying a reasonable man, the psychiatrist David Shaffer, who is also the father of her children Bee and Charles.
Eventually, she ended up cheating on him with another bad "boy", and that was basically the end of the book.
What I think now, after I read the book:
I am a little disappointed.
Anna did not really have the big struggle to get in the industry, she was basically introduced to whoever she needed to proceed in her career by her peers.
What I read was a story about a woman who got a good head start on fulfilling her dream career, and hence, I cannot really relate haha
However, I still really admire her inner strength to ignore negative comments about her, which seem to be made quite often.
Moreover, to my knowledge, she made VOGUE what it is today: The world's most influential fashion magazine. This most definitely required hard work and commitment to the job, which she definitely brought and still brings to the party.
Anyway: As a "normal person", I feel you do not get a lot of insights on how to land a job like hers. If you are interested in her life anyway, you can read this book, but beware, for I have the impression the negative things Oppenheimer wrote about her are sometimes a bit over the top, and the content of the book may be not entirely true.. This is just a gut feeling though.
In my opinion, this book deserves 3 of 5 possible stars.
I just hoped to get more insights for "normal people", which is why I had to take away one star. Also, the book had a few really boring parts which made it hard for me to continue reading. Moreover, I sometimes had the impression that people were just rude and wanted to say something bad about her, which did not make the content seem authentic at times. Hence, I had to subtract another star.
From my point of view, this is some put together second hand information, which might even be tainted by the author's views, thus I cannot really recommend this book.
However, I suppose there are worst books than this one!
x J.
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