Can Fashion’s Reign Meet Its Algorithm?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 12: Chloe Malle attends W Magazine 50th Anniversary presented By Lexus at Shun Lee on October 12, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for W Magazine)

Getty Images for W Magazine

Since 1988, Anna Wintour has been more than just a fashion editor. She’s been the metronome of fashion itself, a woman who single-handedly set the tempo of the industry with every Vogue cover shoot, celebrity approval nod, and Met Gala theme. So it was no surprise when news broke in June 2025 that she’d be stepping aside; the rumor mill churned at couture speed. We saw viral betting market Polymarket opening wagers on her successor, with potentials ranging from reliable industry veterans, to Jeff Bezos’s bride and Vogue cover star, Lauren Sánchez.

Anna Wintour Hands the Baton

On Tuesday, the wait was over. It was announced that Chloe Malle will take the reigns as the new ‘Head of Editorial Content’ at Vogue. Malle, the daughter of Candice Bergen and French filmmaker Louis Malle, is seen as a steady hand and well known Vogue insider, having joined in 2011 as Social Editor, before being promoted to Contributing Editor in 2016, and most recently Editor of Vogue.com.

Anna Wintour, however isn’t going anywhere just yet. She will remain as Global Editorial Director of Vogue and Chief Content Officer of Condé Nast. And while Malle herself was quick to mention she’s “lucky to have Anna just down the hall as her mentor,” there is no denying this marks a big shift for a brand that is synonymous with Wintour’s name, and the task ahead for Malle is monumental.

Where Wintour commanded magazine covers and Met Galas, Malle faces a far more fickle landscape. She must guide Vogue from its print-soaked legacy into a digital era defined by TikTok trends, influencer microcultures, and shrinking attention spans, in an economy where attention is the survivalist currency.

From Dogue to Naomi Biden: Chloe Malle’s Vogue

Malle it seems is keenly aware of this and has built her editorial vision on curating content that is tabloid adjacent yet high society, weaving legacy to virality. She co-hosts the magazine’s podcast The Run-Through, and is said to have been the mastermind behind viral plays like “Dogue” and the Vogue Vintage Guide, Naomi Biden and Lauren Sanchez weddings. It’s clear she sees the importance in a fresh connective thread to engage new audiences and a desire to expand Vogue’s voice into feeds, headphones, and more unexpected corners of the internet. The timing of which has never mattered more.

This is because, audiences are shifting dramatically. Gen Z are more likely to be influenced by TikTok hauls, YouTube shorts, and Substack newsletters than a September issue. As fellow Forbes contributor Lilian Raji describes “once considered fashion’s north star, Vogue’s editorial voice is now competing with algorithms, influencers, and fast-moving microtrends.” She points to figures from muckrack which tell a worrying story for Vogues digital footprint, currently eclipsed by People Style, commanding the #1 position of most relevant US fashion publications with 195,887,577 site visits compared to Vogue’s #6 spot with 18,599,319.

It appears that while Gen Z hold onto the desire for niche print, in what is described as the pursuit of something “tangible and collectible,” the reality is that the restless, fast-twitch world of digital media is the new lifeblood of brands, increasingly dictating their marketing funnel and reach.

So while it might be hard to believe a global powerhouse like Anna Wintour with her signature bob and oversized sunglasses, can lose audience to someone with a Tiktok account and a ring light, such is the reality of this modern moment. According to figures by Market.us Scoop, micro-influencers (10K-100K followers) drive 7x more engagement than traditional celebrities and niche fashion influencers achieve conversion rates 60% higher than generalist accounts.

That is to say Vogue finds itself on the precipice of a generational, technological, and economic reckoning. The challenge ahead for Malle is to ensure it remains both an arbitrator of cultural reverence and a digital juggernaut at a time when attention spans are shifting faster than runway hemlines.

Anna Wintour’s Vogue and the Financial Reality

Adding to this challenge, is the commercial safety net or lack thereof. Vogue isn’t just Condé Nast’s crown jewel, it is also its financial crutch. The company lost $120 million in 2017, sold off once-iconic titles like Brides, Golf Digest, and W, and sold its iconic London headquarters for $87.5 million in 2024. Its 2021 return to profitability was short-lived, with pre-tax profits plummeting from $29 million in 2022 to $10 million in 2023, a year when global revenue growth was flat and the company missed internal forecasts. Despite staff layoffs affecting about 300 employees, industry analysts say Condé Nast still faces high pressure to continue restructuring and invest in digital innovation to survive long term headwinds.

What Chloe Malle Inherits

And so this is the test Malle now faces. She steps into a role that is as much about perception as it is about profit, a dynamic all to familiar to female leaders, who must balance cultural expectation with commercial performance. She takes the helm of a brand wrapped in cultural cachet, with the Met Gala alone generating an estimated $543 million in media impact, yet owned by a company in a state of financial triage. Her success won’t be measured on cover shoots, it will come down to whether she can translate cultural buzz into a commercial bottom-line.

Anna Wintour reimagined an industry but Chloe Malle’s test is even tougher. The question remains whether she can hold onto the crown in a world where impact is measured by likes, not legacy.