Amy Astley Found Out She Was Teen Vogue's Founding Editor Nine Days Before She Gave Birth

by POPSUGAR Fashion News 0

>> Contrary to popular opinion, Amy Astley says, she didn't work under Anna Wintour when she was editor at House & Garden (HG, as it was called then). In fact, she only met Wintour the day the magazine was shuttered: "So I get the call the day HG closed, would I go and see Anna, and I said sure, of course . . . and they were like, ‘Today, right now.’ And that’s how I learned how Vogue operates — I was like, ‘Can I do it tomorrow? I have to get my outfit together!’ And HR was like, ‘No, she’s ready for you now, right now.’ So I toddled up there in my little Agnes B. T-shirt and my brand new Chanel ballet slippers that cost, like, a week’s salary." She was hired as beauty associate at Vogue and promoted soon after to beauty director: "I stayed at Vogue for nine years — I did four test issues of Teen Vogue, I edited Index — and I didn’t think Conde Nast was going to launch Teen Vogue, so I got pregnant for the second time, and Anna and Mr. [Si] Newhouse called me in. I was nine days away from giving birth — I was so fat. I had gained, like, forty pounds . . . I was huge! And they said, ‘We’re going to launch Teen Vogue, and we want you to edit it.’ I literally gave birth to my second child Ingrid as the magazine was being launched, so she and it are the same age — eight. I was 35 at the time." [Into The Gloss]