Michaela Bercu

Anna Wintour says she wasn't surprised when the printers called and asked whether her very first cover of Vogue in Nov. 1988 was a mistake. That cover, which featured model Michaela Bercu photographed by Peter Lindbergh in a beaded Christian Lacroix couture jacket and a pair of Guess Jeans, was — in Wintour's words — "so unlike the studied and elegant close-ups that were typical of Vogue's covers back then, with tons of makeup and major jewelry."

"I couldn't blame them," Wintour wrote. "This one broke all the rules. Michaela wasn't looking at you, and worse, she had her eyes almost closed. Her hair was blowing across her face. It looked easy, casual, a moment that had been snapped on the street, which it had been, and which was the whole point. Afterwards, in the way that these things can happen, people applied all sorts of interpretations: It was about mixing high and low, Michaela was pregnant, it was a religious statement. But none of these things was true. I had just looked at that picture and sensed the winds of change. And you can't ask for more from a cover image than that."

Photo: Michaela Bercu photographed by Peter Lindbergh for the Nov. 1988 cover of Vogue.

>> While Conde Nast chairman Si Newhouse is off in Europe, prompting rumors that something big is on the horizon, Anna Wintour sat down with Jonathan Tisch for a public chat last night.  PETA members peppered the audience, heckling Wintour with shouts of "This woman skins animals alive!" Before they were removed from the room, Anna replied, "Fur is still a part of fashion, so Vogue will continue to report on it."

The discussion covered a number of topics, including the Internet — Wintour said that Vogue.com, which has been noticeably increasing in content the past couple of months, will "break out on our own" from Style.com next year.  She also mentioned that Andre Leon Talley, who recently started a blog for Vogue.com, Talley Ho!, was initially dragged kicking and screaming to the Web, saying he wasn't into the modern world, but now loves blogging.  Some highlights, including a hint at the next cover, from the chat — more at The Cut:

You've said it's time to move on from a job when you get too angry. Are you getting to the point where you're thinking about other options?
Well, mostly I'm thinking about the next day. I think that I have the best job in the entire world. To be honest, I don't think I'd be very good at anything else!

So will we be seeing more models and less celebrities on the cover of Vogue?
Well, tomorrow is another day. We'll never know. But we certainly do have a model tied to the next issue, yes.

Her favorite Vogue cover; how she hires at Vogue »