wintour wonderland

Tim Gunn Claims He Saw Anna Wintour’s Bodyguards Carry Her Down the Stairs

Anna Wintour’s talents are of course numerous, but among her most admirable is her ability to be the first one out of a fashion show. (She also amazingly often seems to be the first person in her seat, too.) We’ve seen her literally run down the runway after a show to be the first person out the door, usually intercepted and aided by the crowd-navigating skills of a hulking bodyguard. Tim Gunn saw her leaving the Peter Som show at the Metropolitan Pavilion in 2006 and claims in his new book, Gunn’s Golden Rules, that her bodyguards carried her out:

“I was with a colleague from Parsons, and we had been discussing the will-she-or-won’t-she-take-the-elevator question, so we ran over to the elevator bay to see if Anna would deign to get on. She wasn’t there. Then we looked over the stairway railing. And what did we see but Anna being carried down the stairs. The bodyguards had made a fireman’s lock and were racing her from landing to landing. She was sitting on their crossed arms.. I ran to the window to see if they would put her down on the sidewalk or carry her to the car like that. They carried her to the car. And I thought: I will never forget this.”


Gunn also claims he once saw André Leon Talley in a likewise ridiculous capacity, at a panel discussion taking place at the New York Public Library.

“When we return to the green room, we see that someone has spread a translucent barber’s bib over Andre and he’s reclining, his arms at his sides. He’s being fed grapes and cubes of cheese one by one, like a bird in a nest.”


A Vogue spokesman called Gunn’s imagination “very vivid” and said these stories were untrue. Even if they are, they would only make us love Anna and André even more. If you didn’t have to walk down stairs or feed yourself, would you?

Tim Gunn describes Anna Wintour’s special ride [Page Six/NYP]

Tim Gunn Claims He Saw Anna Wintour’s Bodyguards Carry Her Down the Stairs