The British woman who could be crowned Anna Wintour's successor at US Vogue: She tells the French how to dress and is a wellness guru. So is Claire Thomson-Jonville eyeing up her mentor's old job?
It is a grey rainy day and I have just entered the offices of French Vogue in the heart of Paris. I am here to meet Claire Thomson-Jonville, the magazine’s editor – or head of editorial content as we must now call it – hand-picked by
Anna Wintour, who less than a year into the role is being mooted as one of her possible successors at US Vogue.
It has been a decade since I last worked for Vogue – I was a contributing editor at the British edition for more than quarter of a century and cut my teeth at fellow Conde Nast publication Vanity Fair in New York – but there is something about being here in this whitewashed rabbit warren of a space, having to manoeuvre between all the bulging garment rails, which immediately brings it all rushing back.
Although there is no dress code as such and it feels more relaxed than I expected – this is Vogue
France after all – everyone seems to be dressed in black and white and when Thomson-Jonville sweeps in wearing a pair of thigh-high leopard skin boots over her jeans, one can sense if not see, a collective stand to attention.
What strikes first about Thomson-Jonville is how much she looks like a Vogue model herself, with her Amazonian limbs, tousled blonde hair and perfectly wide-set eyes.
What strikes second is her faint Scottish accent. Though she has lived in Paris for decades and speaks the language fluently, she is one of ours, having been born in
Glasgow and brought up in Herefordshire with a law degree from
EdinburghUniversity.
On paper at least she seems quite an odd choice for the role – Parisiens are so snobby when it comes to matters of fashion, especially when it comes to us Brits.
But one thing nobody can fault Thomson-Jonville on, though, is her flawless fashion pedigree. A former editor of bi-annual style bible Self Service and the French edition of i-D magazine, she has consulted for the likes of Nike, Ralph Lauren and Victoria Beckham.
She has even designed her own capsule collection in collaboration with French tailoring label Pallas. Her signature look was always one of her suits with Nike trainers – she wore one of her own creations for her job interview with Wintour, but with a Givenchy bag and heels.
Claire Thomson-Jonville is being mooted as one of Anna Wintour's possible successors
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She also has a massive social media following which – in this era where lifestyle means just as much, if not more, than pure fashion – really counts.
Check out her Instagram (196,000 followers) or TikTok feed (6,000) and you will see her posing in the tiniest of bikinis or working out in trackie bottoms at the gym, all interspersed with motivational messages in just the right font.
Fans will also know she’s seriously into meditation and running holistic wellness retreats.
If she ever starts doing them again (she’s a bit busy now), be prepared to go on a long waiting list and to hand in your mobile phone when you get there. No talking allowed.
I’m intrigued by how on earth a girl from Herefordshire feels brave enough to not only edit in French, but also tell the French what to wear.
It makes me wonder if she put any noses out of joint when she was hired, because, in my limited experience, Paris is a hideously difficult city to penetrate if you aren’t a native. My observation is met with a curious ‘Next question’ and a furtive glance at the two attending PRs, so I’ve clearly hit a sore point.
It’s all straight out of the playbook of her boss Anna Wintour whom I met once in the 1980s when I was an assistant editor at Vanity Fair and I was sent to interview her.
A total rookie at the time and hands all but shaking, I asked if I could record her. She gave me a look and after a couple of seconds coolly said: ‘I’d rather not.’ Did I have to borrow a pencil and notepad? I can’t remember. But even though that was more than 30 years ago the memory still chills me.
By comparison, Thomson-Jonville is positively cosy, and yet there’s a steely edge to her which reminds me of her Vogue boss.
By all accounts the two women clicked at the job interview. ‘When I got the email, my first reaction was: what the f*** am I going to wear?’ says Thomson-Jonville.
‘But I was a actually more excited than nervous. I thought to myself, whatever happens, I’m speaking to Anna Wintour.
‘But then Anna and I have a very similar vision so it was quite fluid. There was a definite complicité.’
‘When I got the email, my first reaction was: what the f*** am I going to wear?’ says Thomson-Jonville
There’s a steely edge to Thomson-Jonville which reminds me of her Vogue boss Wintour, writes Christa D'Souza
Like her ‘mentor’, Thomson-Jonville is sphinxy about personal details – I’m not even allowed to know her age, though I’m guessing she’s in her 40s. This much, though, we are allowed to know. Her father worked in sports retail and her parents were keen francophiles which meant she holidayed in France.
Entranced with the culture and the language, it made sense for her to study French law and to spend a year abroad studying at the Sorbonne. What’s also clear is she’s been obsessed by magazines since before she could talk and that she had a tangible vision while at school in the 1990s, that this was what she would be doing.
‘I’ve always been very driven,’ she goes on in her comforting brogue, ‘just ask my mum. I’d be there in the classroom telling myself I’m gonna work at Vogue, I’m gonna live in Paris… it was very clear to me, even then.’
Though she regularly posts pictures of her two beautiful children – a son Etienne, eight, and daughter Georgia, ten – she has always kept shtum about their father who is French and from whom she is separated. She now lives with her children in one of those airy parquet-floored flats which grace the pages of architectural magazines.
Flicking through her latest issue – her sixth to date, it’s still very French, but different from that of her feted predecessors – the panda-eyed Carine Roitfeld (editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, as it was then called, from 2001 to 2011) and Roitfeld’s equally glamorous successor from 2011 to 2021, Emmanuelle Alt.
It is all about meditation and wellness, with 45-year-old Gisele Bundchen paddling in the sea wearing a transparent negligee on the cover next to the line: ‘La Belle Vie’. Inside are interviews with English life-coach Jay Shetty and guru Deepak Chopra, lush photospreads of St Barts, Thomson-Jonville’s favourite holiday haunt – with not a Gauloises in sight. It comes across to me – and I’m just a punter these days – as less spiky, less intimidating, more accessible than French Vogue used to be.
Under Wintour – who announced in June that, although Vogue US would seeking a new editorial lead, she will retain her role as global editorial director – there is much more of a party line, it feels, than there was before when each international edition was largely left to develop its own signature style.
‘I don’t know what it was like before,’ says Thomson-Jonville. ‘But it is global business and we are part of a global brand so there’s an ecosystem of very cool talent and photographers [to choose from]… but it’s not like anyone is forced to do anything they don’t want to do.’
Whatever the case, her Vogue feels very much a reflection of Thomson-Jonville’s own life, a life brimming with health and spirituality and positive energy, but no less disciplined because of it.
But, then as I’m sure she herself would agree, you can’t be too ‘knit your own yoghurt’ if you are at the helm of French Vogue.
‘Am I extremely regimented? Yes! Am I looking for this level from my team? Yes!’
All of which will be music to notorious workaholic Wintour’s ears, no doubt.
‘I don’t want to come across as a real [disciplinarian], but I have high expectations of myself and I’m always trying to set the bar high,’ she continues.
‘Certain rituals [such as waking up at 5.15am on weekdays, having a protein shake, doing some yoga and meditating, before her kids are awake] helps me in my work. I think it brings added value to my job.
Vogue isn’t just fashion, it’s lifestyle, it’s what you eat, it’s where you go, what vitamins you take…’
When it’s is time to go and Thomson-Jonville says goodbye warmly before escorting me out to the lift. ‘Be kind, won’t you,’ she reiterates as the door slides open. ‘I’m only human after all!’
She is, of course, and a decent seeming one too, but she is also one of those ‘uber’ people you don’t come across very often, people who possess this unique combination of poise, drive and talent which causes them to rise to the very top.
Wintour, with her gimlet eye, has obviously spotted this. Who knows, maybe she’s spotted her successor, too.
