But there is something more in Wintour's background that makes it hard to replace her, though, inevitably, it will happen. "In newspaper terms, she is old news — the Nuclear Wintour story," Roberts said wearily. Editors of Wintour's generation, like the designers they champion and the photographers they protect, have a depth of knowledge not easily reproduced. Roberts said: "I've never seen anything from Carine that astonishes me the way that I have in American Vogue. I've seen kinky, sexy but not astonishing. But I did see astonishing in Vogue when Anna published a picture of Nadia Auermann having sex with a swan." He was referring to the Helmut Newton picture from the early '90s. That kind of subversion made American Vogue really cutting edge, Roberts said. "He's never been replaced."
